TY - JOUR AU - Thorben Mährle, AU - Nuray Akyüz, AU - Pim Fuchs, AU - Nicola Bonzanni, AU - Donjete Simnica, AU - Ulrich Germing, AU - Anne Marie Asemissen, AU - Johann Christoph Jann, AU - Florian Nolte, AU - Wolf-Karsten Hofmann, AU - Daniel Nowak, AU - Mascha Binder, PY - 2019/06/30 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Deep sequencing of bone marrow microenvironments of patients with del(5q) myelodysplastic syndrome reveals imprints of antigenic selection as well as generation of novel T-cell clusters as a response pattern to lenalidomide JF - Haematologica JA - haematol VL - 104 IS - 7 SE - Articles DO - 10.3324/haematol.2018.208223 UR - https://haematologica.org/article/view/8966 SP - 1355-1364 AB - In myelodysplastic syndromes with a partial deletion of the long arm of chromosome 5, del(5q), lenalidomide is believed to reverse anergic T-cell immunity in the bone marrow resulting in suppression of the del(5q) clone. In this study we used next-generation sequencing of immunoglobulin heavy chain (IGH) and T-cell receptor beta (TRB) rearrangements in bone marrow-residing and peripheral blood-circulating lymphocytes of patients with del(5q) myelodysplastic syndromes to assess the immune architecture and track adaptive immune responses during treatment with lenalidomide. The baseline bone marrow B-cell space in patients was comparable to that of age-matched healthy controls in terms of gene usage and IGH clonality, but showed a higher percentage of hypermutated IGH sequences, indicating an expanded number of antigen-experienced B lineage cells. Bone marrow B lineage clonality decreased significantly and hypermutated IGH clones normalized upon lenalidomide treatment, well in line with the proliferative effect on healthy antigen-inexperienced B-cell precursors previously described for this drug. The T-cell space in bone marrow of patients with del(5q) myelodysplastic syndromes showed higher TRB clonality compared to that of healthy controls. Upon lenalidomide treatment, myelodysplastic syndrome-specific T-cell clusters with low to medium spontaneous generation probabilities emerged; these clusters were shared across patients, indicating a common antigen-driven T-cell response pattern. Hence, we observed B lineage diversification and generation of new, antigen-dependent T-cell clusters, compatible with a model of adaptive immunity induced against the del(5q) clone by lenalidomide. Overall, this supports the concept that lenalidomide not only alters the functional T-cell state, but also the composition of the T- and B-cell repertoires in del(5q) myelodysplastic syndromes. ER -