The involvement of B-cell-receptor (BCR) signalling in a particular type of lymphoma highlights the therapeutic potential of molecules that block this pathway.

In this week’s Nature, Louis Staudt and colleagues implicate chronic activation of the BCR in a particular type of lymphoma, the activated B-cell-like (ABC) subtype of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL).

Previous studies suggested a role for BCR in the development of lymphomas, but genetic and functional evidence for its cancer-causing role in human lymphomas was lacking. This study identifies mutations in two BCR signalling subunits that are commonly found in human DLBCL tumour samples but are rarely present in other lymphoma types. The authors find that BCR signalling is important for the survival of ABC DLBCL tumour cells and therefore speculate that drugs that block BCR signalling may prove useful in certain DLBCL cases