Despite previous reports that showed potential tumor suppressors, such as PRDM1 or oncogenes associated with the etiology of this malignancy, the role of long non-coding RNAs in natural killer/T-cell lymphoma pathobiology has not been addressed to date.
BLIMP1 is frequently inactivated in a variety of lymphomas, including diffuse large B cell lymphomas, Natural Killer cell lymphoma and anaplastic large T cell lymphoma.
The ectopic expression of miR-223 led to the downregulation of the PRDM1 protein in the NK/T-cell lymphoma cell line, whereas a decrease in miR-223 restored the level of PRDM1 protein.
In addition, an important role for Blimp-1 in maintaining the homeostasis of effector T cells is emerging and high expression of Blimp-1beta, a splicing variant of Blimp-1, have been presumed to be associated with poor prognosis in T cell lymphoma although this aspect of the gene needs further investigation.