T Cell Receptor Gene Repertoire Restriction in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia with Stereotyped IGHV4–34/IGKV2–30 Antigen Receptors

Abstract 3908

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) exhibits a remarkably skewed immunoglobulin (IG) gene repertoire mainly evident in the existence of subsets of patients with quasi-identical IGs in their B cell receptors (BcRs), collectively accounting for one-third of CLL patients. BcR stereotypy is strongly suggestive of clonal selection by a restricted set of antigens. However, it is not yet clear at which phase of clonal evolution these antigens act, or whether the stimulation is persistent. Furthermore, the possible role of antigens in the selection and activation of cognate T lymphocytes remains obscure yet highly relevant, given recent data about T cell interactions with CLL B cells and their tolerized behavior. Here, we analyzed the repertoire of T cell receptor β chain genes (TRB) in CLL expressing stereotyped IGHV4–34/IGKV2–30 BcR IGs (subset #4), which exhibit a series of immunogenetic features, such as pronounced intraclonal diversification of IG genes, suggestive of ongoing interactions with (auto)antigens. Furthermore, subset #4 CLL cells have distinctive functional responses to BcR and/or Toll-like receptor triggering, rendering this subset a paradigmatic example for seeking evidence of antigen selection also within the T cell population. We analyzed 18 peripheral blood samples of 12 untreated subset #4 patients (samples from different time points were analyzed in 4 cases). No case had evidence of infection at sampling. PCR amplicons for TRBV-TRBD-TRBJ gene rearrangements (BIOMED2 protocol) were subcloned by transformation into E. coli/TOP10F bacteria and randomly chosen individual colonies were subjected to Sanger sequencing. Only productive rearrangements (n=320, ranging from 14–52/case) were analyzed. All cases were found to carry clusters of identical rearrangements (≥2) corresponding to distinct clonotypes; the number of expanded clonotypes/case ranged from 1–13 (median 5). The relative frequency of each clonotype/case was determined by dividing the number of the corresponding identical sequences by the total number of subcloned sequences analyzed. The frequency of the most expanded (immunodominant) clonotype/case ranged from 8.1–70.4%. Collectively, the frequency of all expanded clonotypes/case ranged from 29.7–93.3%. In 2/4 cases that were analyzed at different time points, at least one clonotype was found to persist. Importantly, cluster analysis of the TRB CDR3 sequences of all cases identified ‘public’ clonotypes: 2 identical clonotypes (TRBV15*02/TRBD1*01/TRBJ2–2*01 and TRBV30*01/TRBD1*01/TRBJ2–2*01) each shared by a pairs of different patients and a highly similar clonotype shared by an additional pair of patients. In conclusion, the present study provides clear evidence of repertoire skewing among T cells in CLL patients belonging to subset #4, strongly supporting antigen selection. The finding of ‘public’ clonotypes raises the possibility that shared antigenic epitopes may be relevant for clonal selection of T cells in different subset #4 cases. Whether the antigens that drive T cell repertoire restriction are identical/related to those implicated in the selection of CLL progenitors of subset #4 or even the malignant cells themselves or whether they are tumor-associated antigens remains to be clarified.