Author:
Davis Joanne E.,Sharpe Chia,Mason Kylie,Tam Constantine S.,Koldej Rachel M.,Ritchie David S.
Abstract
Abstract
Background
The development of Bruton’s tyrosine kinase inhibitors (BTKi) for the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) has provided a highly effective and relatively non-toxic alternative to conventional chemotherapy. Some studies have shown that BTKi can also lead to improvements in T cell immunity in patients despite in vitro analyses suggesting an immunosuppressive effect of BTKi on T cell function.
Methods
In this study, we examined both the in vitro effect and long-term in vivo effect of two clinically available BTKi, ibrutinib and zanubrutinib. Additional in vitro assessments were undertaken for a third BTKi, acalabrutinib. Immune subset phenotyping, cytokine secretion, T cell degranulation and proliferation assays were performed on peripheral blood mononuclear cells isolated from untreated CLL patients, and CLL patients on long-term (> 12 months) BTKi treatment.
Results
Similar to prior studies we observed that long-term BTKi treatment normalises lymphocyte subset frequency and reduces PD-1 expression on T cells. We also observed that T cells from patients taken prior to BTKi therapy showed an abnormal hyper-proliferation pattern typical of senescent T cells, which was normalised by long-term BTKi treatment. Furthermore, BTKi therapy resulted in reduced expression of the T cell exhaustion markers PD-1, TIM3 and LAG3 in late generations of T cells undergoing proliferation.
Conclusions
Collectively, these findings indicate that there are critical differences between the in vitro effects of BTKi on T cell function and the effects derived from long-term BTKi exposure in vivo. Overall long-term exposure to BTKi, and particularly ibrutinib, resulted in improved T cell fitness in part due to suppressing the abnormal hyper-proliferation of CLL T cells and the associated development of T cell senescence.
Funder
cll global research foundation
royal melbourne hospital foundation
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology,General Medicine
Cited by
12 articles.
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