CLEC12A plays an important role in immunomodulatory function and prognostic significance of patients with acute myeloid leukemia

Abstract

The physiological function and prognostic significance of C-type lectin domain family 12 member A (CLEC12A) in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients are unclear. CLEC12A transcriptional expression in a variety of tumors from several public databases was collected and compared. We found that CLEC12A was highly expressed in AML cell lines and in tissues from AML patients and a higher CLEC12A expression in leukemia stem cells. CLEC12A low expression was associated with poor prognosis in the chemotherapy-only group and high CLEC12A expression may benefit from autologous or allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). CLEC12A expression was positively correlated with infiltrating levels of type 2 macrophages and monocytes and negatively associated with NK cells and regulatory T cells in AML. CLEC12A high was positively associated with immune checkpoint genes as well as macrophage associated genes. CLEC12A is an ideal chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy target for AML and its expression level was closely linked to treatment response and patients’ survival outcome. CLEC12A plays an important immunomodulatory role in AML.

Keywords:

• Acute myeloid leukemia
• CLEC12A
• biological function
• prognosis
• immunomodulation
• bioinformatics

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their gratitude to EditSprings (https://www.editsprings.cn/) for the expert linguistic services provided.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Author contributions

H.X. and J.Y. designed and directed the study. Q.L. wrote the manuscript draft. C.L., X.X., C.Z., W.C., M.W., and Z.J. reviewed the manuscript. Z.J. and H.X. provided resources. All authors reviewed and approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Data availability statement

All data on CLEC12A transcriptional expression in a variety of tumors and normal samples were collected from several public databases.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Project of Henan Provincial Education Department, China (20A320062, recipient JY), Project of Science and Technology Department of Henan Province, China (LHGJ20190039, recipient JY), Project of Science and Technology Department of Henan Province, China (SBGJ20202076, recipient JY), and Talent Research Fund of the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China (recipient JY).