Enrichment of high-risk innate immune cells in Hispanic and Black children with B-acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Authors

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Julie R. Gilbert

Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, Emory University and Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, Atlanta, GA

Julie R. Gilbert , Himalee S. Sabnis , Roman Radzievski , Deon Doxie , Deborah DeRyckere , Sharon M. Castellino , Kavita M. Dhodapkar

Organizations

Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, Emory University and Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, Atlanta, GA, Department of Pediatrics, Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and Emory University, Atlanta, GA, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, Atlanta, GA

Research Funding

Other Foundation

Background: Black and Hispanic children with B-acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) experience worse outcomes compared to their non-Hispanic white (NHW) counterparts. Immune-based therapies have improved the outcomes of children with B-ALL, however, impact of racial/ethnic background on immune microenvironment is less studied. Methods: BM from 61 children with newly diagnosed B-ALL(Hispanic = 21, Black = 17, NHW = 23) was obtained via the Aflac Biorepository. High-dimensional analysis was performed utilizing single cell mass cytometry with 61 markers to characterize T, NK and myeloid cells. Data was analyzed using Cytobank and high-dimensional visualization platforms such as ViSNE. Clinical data including self-reported race/ethnicity and NCI-risk classification were obtained for all samples. Results: Multi-dimensional analysis was carried out for each cell population to dissect race/ethnicity-associated differences. ViSNE clustering of NK cells identified 3 different NK populations, including a distinct population of mature CD57+ NK cells with Tbethi, HLADRhi, granzymeBhi, CD27- phenotype. The distribution of NK subsets was highly impacted by race/ethnicity. Hispanic (H) patients had higher proportions of CD57+ mature NK cells when compared with other groups, (40 ± 4% vs 33 ± 2%; p = 0.03) with pronounced differences apparent within standard risk (SR) patients. H-SR had higher proportion of CD57+ NK cells compared to other SR patients (mean H-SR 43.4 ± 5.87% vs 26.3 ± 2.87% p = 0.0049). ViSNE clustering of myeloid cells identified 5 clusters based on patterns of cell surface markers, including a distinct CD11c+CD16+DRhi inflammatory/non-classical myeloid population. Further analysis showed that NHW-SR patients have significantly lower proportions of CD16+DR+ myeloid cells compared to Hispanic, Black and NHW-HR patients (mean NHW-SR 3.67 ± 2.56% vs Others 10.8 ± 7.87% p = 0.0394). Notably, a phenotypically similar population has recently been implicated in leukemic progression in preclinical models (Witkowski et al, Cancer Cell 2020). In contrast to innate cells, T cell clusters were broadly comparable between different racial/ethnic groups. Conclusions: These studies provide detailed single-cell proteomic analysis and highlight the impact of racial/ethnic background on immune microenvironment in pediatric B-ALL. Our data identify differences in innate immunity with enrichment of high-risk immune-populations in Hispanic and Black children and depletion of inflammatory myeloid populations in NHW-SR children with B-ALL. These variations may contribute to the observed differences in outcomes and may impact application of immune therapies in racial/ethnic groups.

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Abstract Details

Meeting

2022 ASCO Annual Meeting

Session Type

Poster Session

Session Title

Hematologic Malignancies—Leukemia, Myelodysplastic Syndromes, and Allotransplant

Track

Hematologic Malignancies

Sub Track

Acute Leukemia

Citation

J Clin Oncol 40, 2022 (suppl 16; abstr 7021)

DOI

10.1200/JCO.2022.40.16_suppl.7021

Abstract #

7021

Poster Bd #

252

Abstract Disclosures

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