The malignant Hodgkin/Reed-Sternberg (RS) cell is embedded in a collagen-rich microenvironment.

In this week's issue of Blood, Cader and colleagues elucidate a potentially important collagen-mediated signaling pathway supporting the survival of RS cells in Epstein-Barr virus-positive (EBV+) Hodgkin Disease (HD), demonstrating that expression of the EBV latent membrane protein-1 (LMP1) upregulates the expression of discoidin domain receptor 1 (DDR1), a collagen-activated receptor tyrosine kinase.

This manuscript offers important insights into the role of collagen and the tumor microenvironment in the survival of EBV+ tumor cells, and indicates a novel pathway that may suggest a role for tyrosine kinase inhibitors in the treatment of EBV+ HD.

The EBV oncogene LMP1 protects lymphoma cells from cell death through the collagen-mediated activation of DDR1, Fathima Zumla Cader, Martina Vockerodt, Shikha Bose, Eszter Nagy, Marie-Anne Brundler, Pamela Kearns, and Paul G. Murray, Blood - doi: 10.1182/blood-2013-04-499004