Findings on a Key Genetic Driver of Lymphomas Published in Nature


Dr. Ari Melnick

Dr. Ari Melnick, the Gebroe Family Professor of Hematology and Medical Oncology and a member of the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell, and colleagues have published breakthrough findings that show certain histone H1 mutations are drivers of lymphoma.

Several years ago, Dr. Melnick and Dr. Ethel Cesarman, Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and a pathologist at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell, and their teams conducted genomic studies that began to reveal that histone H1 mutations (caused by the H1 protein) play a role in lymphomas. Research on H1 mutations, which are frequently seen in lymphomas, continued, but a critical question remained: Were these H1 mutations causal “drivers” of lymphoma, or just “passenger” mutations occurring in the background without impact on cancerous growth?

Dr. Melnick and Dr. Cesarman, along with another co-senior author, Dr. Alexey Soshnev, a Postdoctoral Associate in the laboratory of Dr. David Allis, the Joy and Jack Fishman Professor at The Rockefeller University, have published an answer to that long-standing question in Nature (December 9, 2020). The investigators have discovered that mutations in the histone H1 proteins, which help to package DNA chromosomes, are indeed a frequent cause of lymphomas.

“It’s a very interesting set of findings that give us insights into the origins of lymphomas as well as the important role of histone H1 proteins in the maturation of cells,” said co-senior author Dr. Ari Melnick.

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