Summary: Cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL) develops from clonally expanded CD4+ T cells in a background of chronic inflammation. Dendritic cells (DCs) are potent T-cell stimulators; yet despite DCs’ extensive presence in skin, cutaneous T cells in CTCL do not respond with effective anti-tumor immunity. We evaluated primary T-cell and DC émigrés from epidermal and dermal explant cultures of skin biopsies from CTCL patients (n = 37) and healthy donors (n = 5). Compared with healthy skin, CD4+ CTCL populations contained more T cells expressing PD-1, CTLA-4, and LAG-3; and CD8+ CTCL populations comprised more T cells expressing CTLA-4 and LAG-3. CTCL populations also contained more T cells expressing the inducible T-cell costimulator (ICOS), a marker of T-cell activation. DC émigrés from healthy or CTCL skin biopsies expressed PD-L1, indicating that maturation during migration resulted in PD-L1 expression irrespective of disease. Most T cells did not express PD-L1. Using skin samples from 49 additional CTCL patients for an unsupervised analysis of genome-wide mRNA expression profiles corroborated that advanced T3/T4 stage samples expressed higher levels of checkpoint inhibition genes compared with T1/T2 stage patients or healthy controls. Exhaustion of activated T cells is therefore a hallmark of both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells directly isolated from the lesional skin of patients with CTCL, with a continuum of increasing expression in more advanced stages of disease. These results justify identification of antigens driving T-cell exhaustion and the evaluation of immune checkpoint inhibition to reverse T-cell exhaustion earlier in the treatment of CTCL.
Overall Design: RNA-seq correlated with tumor stages
Strategy: |
|
Species: |
|
Tissue: |
|
Healthy Condition: |
|
Cell Type: |
|
Growth Protocol: | - |
Treatment Protocol: | - |
Extract Protocol: | Total RNA from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) skin from healthy controls and CTCL patients was extracted with miRNeasy FFPE kit (Qiagen). |
Library Construction Protocol: | RNAseq libraries were prepared from Ribo-Zero mRNA-enriched material using KAPA Stranded RNA-Seq Library Preparation Kit (Illumina Platforms) (Kapa Biosystems, Wilmington, USA) and 10 cycles of PCR amplification. |
Molecule Type: | poly(A)+ RNA |
Library Source: | |
Library Layout: | PAIRED |
Library Strand: | -; Forward |
Platform: | ILLUMINA |
Instrument Model: | Illumina HiSeq 2500 |
Strand-Specific: | Unspecific; Specific |
Data Resource | GEN Sample ID | GEN Dataset ID | Project ID | BioProject ID | Sample ID | Sample Name | BioSample ID | Sample Accession | Experiment Accession | Release Date | Submission Date | Update Date | Species | Race | Ethnicity | Age | Age Unit | Gender | Source Name | Tissue | Cell Type | Cell Subtype | Cell Line | Disease | Disease State | Development Stage | Mutation | Phenotype | Case Detail | Control Detail | Growth Protocol | Treatment Protocol | Extract Protocol | Library Construction Protocol | Molecule Type | Library Layout | Strand-Specific | Library Strand | Spike-In | Strategy | Platform | Instrument Model | Cell Number | Reads Number | Gbases | AvgSpotLen1 | AvgSpotLen2 | Uniq Mapping Rate | Multiple Mapping Rate | Coverage Rate |
---|