RATIONALE: Studying samples of tumor tissue from patients with cancer in the laboratory may help doctors learn more about changes that occur in DNA and identify biomarkers related to cancer. It may also help doctors find better ways to treat the cancer.

PURPOSE: This research trial studies biomarkers in tumor tissue samples from patients with peripheral T-cell lymphoma or natural killer cell neoplasms.

OBJECTIVES:

• To identify mutations in oncogenes and tumor suppressors of peripheral T-cell lymphoma or natural killer (NK) cell neoplasm.
• To delineate the mechanisms that mediate oncogenic effects and their clinical prognostic significance in these diseases.
• To perform a comprehensive mutation analysis via whole exome resequencing in a panel of peripheral T-cell or NK lymphomas.

OUTLINE: Fixed paraffin-embedded tumor tissue samples are analyzed for mutations by the Illumina HiSeq platform. Sequencing reads are performed by GAPipeline version 1.5.1 and mapping on the human genome performed using the MAQ software version 0.7.1. Genes harboring validated somatic mutations are then amplified by PCR and analyzed by Sanger resequencing.

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Diagnosed with peripheral T-cell lymphoma or natural killer cell neoplasms
• Available fresh tumor samples from patients treated on ECOG-E2404 and normal DNA (non-ECOG) samples

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

• Not specified

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

• See Disease Characteristics

Samples from patient enrolled on E2404 from whom samples were submitted for research