RALE051: a novel established cell line of sporadic Burkitt lymphoma

To date, the lack of chemo-naive cell models limited exploratory studies to define novel therapies for Burkitt lymphoma (BL). To obtain a useful tool for biological and translational studies for this tumor, we established the RALE051 cell line from the malignant ascitic fluid cells of a patient at initial diagnosis, not previously exposed to any treatment. The cell line was characterized by karyotyping, fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array, immunohistochemistry, and RNA-Seq, revealing the persistence of biological and molecular features observed in the primary ascitic fluid, such as the cell morphology and immunophenotype, the occurrence of a t(8;22) translocation deregulating MYC, knock-out ID3 mutations in a compound homozygous state, and a mutated TP53. Moreover, additional alterations characterizing the ex vivo transformation included the emergence of three novel fusion transcripts and a nonsense mutation affecting TP53. The establishment of this cell line would be beneficial for future biological and therapeutic studies of BL.