Circulating T cells derived from Acute leukemia patients with severe therapy-induced cytopenia express a wide range of chemokine receptors

Abstract

Normal T cells can mediate antileukemic reactivity after allogeneic stem cell transplantation and T cell targeting immunotherapy is now considered for patients receiving conventional chemotherapy. This antileukemic reactivity is most effective in patients with a low leukemia cell burden, and this burden is expected to be lowest early after transplantation/chemotherapy when patients are cytopenic. Local T cell recruitment will then be essential for the efficiency of the antileukemic response. In this context, the authors compared the chemokine receptor expression for T cells derived from healthy individuals and acute myelogenous leukemia patients with therapy-induced cytopenia after conventional chemotherapy or allogeneic stem cell transplantation. Circulating CD3 + T cells showed the same chemokine receptor expression for all three groups: CCR1 low, CCR2 low, CCR3 low, CCR4 intermediate, CCR5 intermediate, CCR7 low/intermediate, CXCR2 low, CXCR3 intermediate, and CXCR4 high. Thus, only minor differences between the groups were observed when comparing individual receptors, and we therefore conclude that the chemokine receptor profiles of circulating CD3 + T cells show no qualitative and only minor quantitative differences for these three groups. © W. S. Maney & Son Ltd 2008.