Scientific Publications Database

Article Title: Gene expression profiling and immune cell-type deconvolution highlight robust disease progression and survival markers in multiple cohorts of CTCL patients
Authors: Lefrancois, Philippe; Xie, Pingxing; Wang, Linghua; Tetzlaff, Michael T.; Moreau, Linda; Watters, Andrew K.; Netchiporouk, Elena; Provost, Nathalie; Gilbert, Martin; Ni, Xiao; Sasseville, Denis; Wheeler, David A.; Duvic, Madeleine; Litvinov, Ivan V.
Journal: ONCOIMMUNOLOGY Volume 7 Issue 8
Date of Publication:2018
Abstract:
CTCL follows different courses depending on the clinical stage at the time of diagnosis. Patients with early stage Mycosis Fungoides (MF) variant of CTCL may experience an indolent course over decades, whereas patients with advanced MF and Sezary Syndrome (SS) disease at diagnosis, often succumb within 5years. Even within early stage CTCL/MF, a minority of patients will progress to more advanced stages. We recently generated RNA sequencing data on 284 CTCL-relevant genes for 157 patients and identified differentially expressed genes across stages I-IV. In this study, we aim to validate robust molecular markers linked to disease progression and survival. We performed multiple hypothesis testing-corrected analysis of variance (ANOVA) on the expression of individual genes across all CTCL samples and early stage (<= IIA) CTCL/MF patients. We used in silico immune cell-type deconvolution from gene expression data to estimate immune cell populations. Based on the analysis of all CTCL samples, we identified TOX, FYB, and CD52 as predictors of disease progression and poor survival. Among early stage (<= IIA) CTCL/MF patients, these 3 genes, along with CCR4, were valuable to predict disease progression. We validated these 4 genes in 3 independent, external Sezary Syndrome patient cohorts with RNA-Sequencing data. In silico immune cell-type deconvolution revealed that neutrophil infiltration in early stage MF conveyed a higher risk for disease progression. Also, NK cell infiltration in late stage MF/SS correlated with improved survival. TOX, FYB, CCR4 and CD52 are robust disease progression and decreased survival biomarkers in CTCL.