These findings suggest that activation of Notch1 may be involved in suppression of B-cell-specific gene expression and global loss of the B-cell phenotype in plasmablastic lymphoma, similar to primary effusion lymphoma and plasma cell myeloma.
In agreement with in vitro studies using human primary effusion lymphoma cell lines, we have found that Notch1 was expressed in the majority of HHV-8-positive primary effusion lymphoma cases, corroborating the notion that Notch1 may have an important role in HHV-8-mediated lymphomagenesis of primary effusion lymphoma.