Prevalence and clinical association of clonal T-cell expansions in Myelodysplastic Syndrome

P K Epling-Burnette1, J S Painter, D E Rollison

  • 1Immunology Program, H Lee Moffitt Cancer Center, Department of Interdisciplinary Oncology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33612, USA. Pearlie.Burnette@moffitt.org

Leukemia
|February 16, 2007
PubMed

Selected patients with Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS) are responsive to immunosuppressive therapy, suggesting that hematopoietic suppressive T cells have a pathogenic role in ineffective hematopoiesis. We assessed T-cell receptor (TCR) clonality through combined flow cytometry and molecular analysis of the complementarity determining region (CDR)-3 of the T-cell receptor-Vbeta gene. We identified clonal T cells in 50% of MDS patients (n=52) compared to 5% of age-matched normal controls (n=20). The presence of T-cell clones was not associated with features linked previously to immunosuppression response, including WHO diagnostic category, karyotype, marrow cellularity, IPSS category, sex or age