Chimeric Antigen Receptor-T-Cell Therapy for B-Cell Hematological Malignancies: An Update of the Pivotal Clinical Trial Data.

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T-cell therapy is an innovative form of adoptive cell therapy that has revolutionized the treatment of certain hematological malignancies, including B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) and B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). The treatment is currently also being studied in other B-cell neoplasms, including multiple myeloma (MM) and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). CD19 and B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) have been the most popular target antigens for CAR-T-cell immunotherapy of these malignancies. This review will discuss the efficacy and toxicity data from the pivotal clinical studies of CD19- and BCMA-targeted CAR-T-cell therapies in relapsed/refractory B-cell malignancies (NHL, ALL, CLL) and MM, respectively.

Comparison of miRNA profiles of microdissected Hodgkin/Reed-Sternberg cells and Hodgkin cell lines versus CD77+ B-cells reveals a distinct subset of differentially expressed miRNAs.

Classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL) is characterized by the presence of malignant Hodgkin and Reed Sternberg (HRS) cells. The scarcity of tumour cells in lymphoma biopsies has hampered genetic analyses of HRS cells, including microRNA (miRNA) expression profiling. We determined the expression of 360 miRNAs in microdissected HRS cells from nine cHL patients. These miRNA profiles were compared to those from four cHL cell lines and CD77+ B-cells, yielding a distinct cHL signature of 12 over- and three underexpressed miRNAs. Our data suggest that miRNAs are implicated in the pathogenesis of Hodgkin lymphoma and prompt further investigations concerning their role in cHL.

High-throughput stem-loop RT-qPCR miRNA expression profiling using minute amounts of input RNA.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are an emerging class of small non-coding RNAs implicated in a wide variety of cellular processes. Research in this field is accelerating, and the growing number of miRNAs emphasizes the need for high-throughput and sensitive detection methods. Here we present the successful evaluation of the Megaplex reverse transcription format of the stem-loop primer-based real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) approach to quantify miRNA expression. The Megaplex reaction provides simultaneous reverse transcription of 450 mature miRNAs, ensuring high-throughput detection. Further, the introduction of a complementary DNA pre-amplification step significantly reduces the amount of input RNA needed, even down to single-cell level. To evaluate possible pre-amplification bias, we compared the expression of 384 miRNAs in three different cancer cell lines with Megaplex RT, with or without an additional pre-amplification step. The normalized Cq values of all three sample pairs showed a good correlation with maintenance of differential miRNA expression between the cell lines. Moreover, pre-amplification using 10 ng of input RNA enabled the detection of miRNAs that were undetectable when using Megaplex alone with 400 ng of input RNA. The high specificity of RT-qPCR together with a superior sensitivity makes this approach the method of choice for high-throughput miRNA expression profiling.

A detailed inventory of DNA copy number alterations in four commonly used Hodgkin's lymphoma cell lines.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Classical Hodgkin's lymphoma (cHL) is a common malignant lymphoma characterized by the presence of large, usually multinucleated malignant Hodgkin and Reed Sternberg (HRS) cells which are thought to be derived from germinal center B-cells. In cHL, the HRS cells constitute less than 1% of the tumor volume; consequently the profile of genetic aberrations in cHL is still poorly understood. DESIGN AND METHODS: In this study, we subjected four commonly used cHL cell lines to array comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH) in order to delineate known chromosomal aberrations in more detail and to search for small hitherto undetected genomic imbalances. RESULTS: The aCGH profiles of the four cell lines tested confirmed the complex patterns of rearrangements previously demonstrated with M-FISH and chromosomal CGH (cCGH). Importantly, aCGH allowed a much more accurate delineation of imbalances as compared to previous studies performed at chromosomal level of resolution. Furthermore, we detected 35 hitherto undetected aberrations including a homozygous deletion of chromosomal region 15q26.2 in the cell line HDLM2 encompasing RGMA and CHD2 and an amplification of the STAT6 gene in cell line L1236 leading to STAT6 overexpression. Finally, in cell line KM-H2 we found a 2.35 Mb deletion at 16q12.1 putatively defining a small critical region for the recurrent 16q deletion in cHL. This region contains the CYLD gene, a known suppressor gene of the NF-mB pathway. INTERPRETATION AND CONCLUSIONS: aCGH was performed on four cHL cell lines leading to the improved delineation of known chromosomal imbalances and the detection of 35 hitherto undetected aberrations. More specifically, our results highlight STAT6 as a potential transcriptional target and identified RGMA, CHD2 and CYLD as candidate tumor suppressors in cHL.