Quantitative modeling of signaling in aggressive B cell lymphoma unveils conserved core network

PLoS Comput Biol. 2024 Oct 1;20(10):e1012488. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1012488. eCollection 2024 Oct.

Abstract

B cell receptor (BCR) signaling is required for the survival and maturation of B cells and is deregulated in B cell lymphomas. While proximal BCR signaling is well studied, little is known about the crosstalk of downstream effector pathways, and a comprehensive quantitative network analysis of BCR signaling is missing. Here, we semi-quantitatively modelled BCR signaling in Burkitt lymphoma (BL) cells using systematically perturbed phosphorylation data of BL-2 and BL-41 cells. The models unveiled feedback and crosstalk structures in the BCR signaling network, including a negative crosstalk from p38 to MEK/ERK. The relevance of the crosstalk was verified for BCR and CD40 signaling in different BL cells and confirmed by global phosphoproteomics on ERK itself and known ERK target sites. Compared to the starting network, the trained network for BL-2 cells was better transferable to BL-41 cells. Moreover, the BL-2 network was also suited to model BCR signaling in Diffuse large B cell lymphoma cells lines with aberrant BCR signaling (HBL-1, OCI-LY3), indicating that BCR aberration does not cause a major downstream rewiring.

MeSH terms

  • Burkitt Lymphoma / metabolism
  • Burkitt Lymphoma / pathology
  • Cell Line, Tumor
  • Computational Biology
  • Humans
  • Lymphoma, B-Cell* / metabolism
  • Lymphoma, B-Cell* / pathology
  • Models, Biological
  • Phosphorylation
  • Receptors, Antigen, B-Cell* / metabolism
  • Signal Transduction*

Substances

  • Receptors, Antigen, B-Cell

Grants and funding

This work was funded by grants from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the joint project e:Med MMML-Demonstrator (031A428B to DK, 031A428F to NB and 031A428G to AK), and MSTARS-2 (16LW0239K, 16LW0240) to NB and PM. BK was funded by Deutsche Krebshilfe (70114307), DKFZ (Young Investigator Grant) and Bundesinstitut für Risikobewertung (60-0102-01.P61). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.