Blood transcriptional profiling reveals IL-1 and integrin signaling pathways associated with clinical response to extracorporeal photopheresis in patients with leukemic cutaneous T-cell lymphoma

The cover for issue 34 of Oncotarget features Figure 5, "Venn diagrams of the cross comparison of DEGs between different groups," by Ying, et al.

Studies on human specimens of untreated IDH-mutant GBMs are rare given they comprise 10% of all GBMs and often present at lower grades, receiving treatments prior to dedifferentiation that can drastically alter microglia and macrophage phenotypes.

Using flow cytometry, immunofluorescence techniques with automated segmentation protocols that quantify at the individual-cell level, and comparison between single-cell RNA-sequencing databases of human GBM, the authors discerned dissimilarities between GBM-associated microglia and macrophages in IDH-mutant and -wild type GBMs. They found there are significantly fewer GAMM in IDH-mutant GBMs, but they are more pro-inflammatory, suggesting this contributes to the better prognosis of these tumors.

Dr. Xiao Ni from the Department of Dermatology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX 77030, USA said, "Cutaneous T-cell lymphomas (CTCL) are a group of lymphoproliferative diseases characterized by clonal skin-homing malignant helper T cells".

A defective signaling in FAS/FAS ligand pathway is an early cause of malignant T cells failing to undergo activation-induced cell death.

Adhesion molecules not only mediate cell attachment, but also initiate signaling and participate in the formation of immunological synapses between T cells and antigen presenting cells.

Mechanisms of action of ECP in CTCL includes induction of apoptosis in malignant T cells, promotion of monocytes to dendritic cell differentiation, reversal of cytokine imbalance, and immunomodulatory effects.

These scientists have previously reported that increases in myeloid and plasmacytoid dendritic cells in the blood occurred after ECP therapy in patients with L-CTCL.

Nevertheless, molecular signaling pathways in patients with L-CTCL following ECP remain largely unknown, which prevents the tailoring of ECP for more effective clinical use.

The Ni Research Team concluded, "These findings may help us to better understand the mechanisms of action of ECP therapy in L-CTCL patients and pathogenesis of L-CTCL".

Full text - https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.26900

Correspondence to - Xiao Ni - [email protected]

Keywords - non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, extracorporeal photopheresis, microarray, integrin