Collapse of the CD27+ B-cell compartment associated with systemic plasmacytosis in patients with advanced melanoma and other cancers

Abstract

Purpose: Disturbed peripheral blood B-cell homeostasis complicates certain infections and autoimmune diseases, such as HIVand systemic lupus erythematosus, but has not been reported in cancer.This study aimed to investigate whether B-cell physiology was altered in the presence of melanoma and other cancers. Experimental Design: Flow cytometry was used to identify phenotypic differences in B cells from patients with melanoma and normal donors. In vitro stimulated B cells were assessed for responsiveness and also used as stimulators of allogeneicTcells inmixed lymphocyte reactions. Results: We show B-cell dysregulation in patients with advanced melanoma (n = 26) andother solid tumors (n = 13), marked by a relative and absolute loss of CD27+ (memory) B cells and associated with an aberrant systemic plasmacytosis. Functionally, B cells from patients with melanoma inefficiently up-regulated immunoregulatorymolecules andweakly secreted cytokines in response to CD40 and toll-like receptor 9 agonists. Stimulated B cells from patients induced proliferation of alloreactive CD4+ Tcells, but theseTcells poorly secreted IFNγ and interleukin-2. These effects were recapitulated by using purified normal donor CD27 neg B cells in these same assays, linking the predominance of CD27neg B cells in patients with the observed functional hyporesponsiveness. Indeed, B-cell dysfunction in patients strongly correlated with the extent of loss of CD27+ B cells in peripheral blood. Conclusions: Disturbed B-cell homeostasis is a previously unrecognized feature of patients with advanced melanoma and other cancers and may represent an unanticipated mechanism of immune incompetence in cancer. ©2009 American Association for Cancer Research.