Landscape of alterations in the checkpoint system in myelodysplastic syndrome and implications for prognosis

PLoS One. 2022 Oct 25;17(10):e0275399. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0275399. eCollection 2022.

Abstract

The emergence of novel immunotherapies for myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) calls for a profound characterization of the "immunome" in the bone marrow (BM) and evaluation of prognostic impact of immunological changes. We performed a prospective study of 87 MDS patients who were referred to a tertiary hematological center and of 11 bone marrow donors who were not related to the study cohort. A flow cytometry panel with 48 markers including checkpoint ligands and receptors was used to study lymphoid and myeloid subpopulations in the bone marrow aspirates. The study found that both the healthy donors and the MDS patients have a high proportion of lymphocytes with PD-1 expression (41±18% and 58±25% respectively) and a high proportion of myeloid cells with PD-1L expression (31±23% and 12±7% respectively), indicating a potential physiological role of checkpoint systems in BM. At the same time, complex alterations including PD-1, CTLA-4, LAG-3 and TIM3 pathways accompanied by an increased level of T-reg and myeloid derived suppressor cell populations were identified in the BM of MDS patients. Cluster analysis showed independent prognostic significance of the checkpoint profile for overall survival (HR 1.90, 95%CI 1.01-3.56, p = 0.0471). TIM3-postive NK and CD8 effector cells along with the blast count were the key subpopulations for prognosis. An elevation of blasts in the bone marrow was associated with simultaneous expression of multiple checkpoints on myeloid cells.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • CTLA-4 Antigen
  • Hepatitis A Virus Cellular Receptor 2*
  • Humans
  • Myelodysplastic Syndromes* / metabolism
  • Prognosis
  • Programmed Cell Death 1 Receptor / genetics
  • Prospective Studies

Substances

  • CTLA-4 Antigen
  • Hepatitis A Virus Cellular Receptor 2
  • Programmed Cell Death 1 Receptor

Associated data

  • Dryad/10.5061/dryad.h18931zq8

Grants and funding

This work was supported by Russian Science Foundation grant № 17-75-20145. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.