Description
©2010 Ferrata Storti Foundation. This is an open-access paper Background
Vγ9Vδ2 T lymphocytes are regarded as promising mediators of cancer immunotherapy due to their capacity to eliminate multiple experimental tumors, particularly within those of hematopoietic origin. However, Vγ9Vδ2 T-cell based lymphoma clinical trials have suffered from the lack of biomarkers that can be used as prognostic of therapeutic success.
Design and Methods
We have conducted a comprehensive study of gene expression in acute lymphoblastic
leukemias and non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas, aimed at identifying markers of susceptibility versus resistance to Vγ9Vδ2 T cell-mediated cytotoxicity. We employed cDNA microarrays and quantitative real-time PCR to screen 20 leukemia and lymphoma cell lines, and 23 primary hematopoietic tumor samples. These data were analyzed using state-of-the-art bioinformatics, and gene expression patterns were correlated with susceptibility to Vγ9Vδ2 T cell mediated cytolysis in vitro.
Results
We identified a panel of 10 genes encoding cell surface proteins that were statistically differentially expressed between “γδ-susceptible” and “γδ-resistant” hematopoietic tumors. Within this panel, 3 genes (ULBP1, TFR2 and IFITM1) were associated with increased susceptibility to
Vγ9Vδ2 T-cell cytotoxicity, whereas the other 7 (CLEC2D, NRP2, SELL, PKD2, KCNK12,
ITGA6 and SLAMF1) were enriched in resistant tumors. Furthermore, some of these candidates
displayed a striking variance of expression among primary follicular lymphomas and T-cell
acute lymphoblastic leukemias.
Conclusions
Our results suggest that hematopoietic tumors display a highly variable repertoire of surface proteins that can impact on Vγ9Vδ2 cell-mediated immunotargeting. The prognostic value of the proposed markers can now be evaluated in upcoming Vγ9Vδ2 T cell-based lymphoma/leukemia clinical trials.
; Correia, Daniel V. 
