Cancer is a complex and heterogeneous disease, in which a number of genetic and epigenetic changes occur in tumor onset and progression. Recent studies indicate that changes at the RNA level are also involved in tumorigenesis, such as adenosine-to-inosine (A-to-I) RNA editing. Here, we systematically investigate transcriptome-wide A-to-I editing events in a large number of samples from Non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHLs). Using a computational pipeline that determines significant differences in editing level between NHL and normal samples at known A-to-I editing sites, we identify a number of differentially edited editing sites between NHL subtypes and normal samples. Most of the differentially edited sites are located in non-coding regions, and many such sites show a strong correlation between gene expression level and editing efficiency, indicating that RNA editing might have direct consequences for the cancer cell’s aberrant gene regulation status in these cases. Moreover, we establish a strong link between RNA editing and NHL by demonstrating that NHL and normal samples and even NHL subtypes can be distinguished based on genome-wide RNA editing profiles alone. Our study establishes a strong link between RNA editing, cancer and aberrant gene regulation in NHL.

A-to-I Editing Is Subtype-Specific in Non-Hodgkin Lymphomas