Serum Chemokine-release Profiles in AML-patients Might Contribute to Predict the Clinical Course of the Disease

ABSTRACT

In cancer or hematologic disorders, chemokines act as growth- or survival factors, regulating hematopoiesis and angiogenesis, determining metastatic spread and controlling leukocyte infiltration into tumors to inhibit antitumor immune responses. The aim was to quantify the release of CXCL8, −9, −10, CCL2, −5, and IL-12 in AML/MDS-pts’ serum by cytometric bead array and to correlate data with clinical subtypes and courses. Minimal differences in serum-levels subdivided into various groups (e.g. age groups, FAB-types, blast-proportions, cytogenetic-risk-groups) were seen, but higher release of CXCL8, −9, −10 and lower release of CCL2 and −5 tendentially correlated with more favorable subtypes (<50 years of age, <80% blasts in PB). Comparing different stages of the disease higher CCL5-release in persisting disease and a significantly higher CCL2-release at relapse were found compared to first diagnosis – pointing to a change of ‘disease activity’ on a chemokine level. Correlations with later on achieved response to immunotherapy and occurrence of GVHD were seen: Higher values of CXCL8, −9, −10 and CCL2 and lower CCL5-values correlated with achieved response to immunotherapy. Predictive cut-off-values were evaluated separating the groups in ‘responders’ and ‘non-responders’. Higher levels of CCL2 and −5 but lower levels of CXCL8, −9, −10 correlated with occurrence of GVHD. We conclude, that in AML-pts’ serum higher values of CXCL8, −9, −10 and lower values of CCL5 and in part of CCL2 correlate with more favorable subtypes and improved antitumor’-reactive function. This knowledge can contribute to develop immune-modifying strategies that promote antileukemic adaptive immune responses.

KEYWORDS:

• Dendritic cells
• acute myeloid leukemia
• T-cells
• immunotherapy
• chemokines

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the nurses and physicians on the wards for their support and diagnostic reports. The results presented in this manuscript were worked out in the doctoral thesis of Christine Grabrucker, Anja Liepert, Dorothea Fischbacher and Marion Merle at the University Hospital Großhadern of the Ludwig-Maximilian-University Munich.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.