CD99 ligation upregulates HSP70 on acute lymphoblastic leukemia cells and concomitantly increases NK cytotoxicity

CD99 is present in many human cell types, including high-level surface expression on pediatric B and T leukemias and Ewing tumors (ETs). On B lymphocytes and respective malignancies, its level decreases with the stage of maturation. Inter-individual variability of CD99 on B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (BCP-ALL) blasts was shown recently to be associated with distinct cytogenetic backgrounds. However, CD99 targets remain mainly unknown. Here, we show that administration of an anti-CD99 antibody to B- and T-leukemia cell lines induces heat shock protein 70 (HSP70), both on the cell surface and in the cytoplasm. Investigation of primary BCP-ALL cells rendered similar results. Intriguingly, CD99-induced modulation of HSP70 on ET cells had profiles different from that on leukemia cells. Since HSP70 expression on tumor cells is a prerequisite for natural killer (NK) cell-mediated tumor lysis, we hypothesized that CD99-induced HSP70 may allow targeting of some CD99-positive malignancies via NK-cell cytotoxicity. Our experiments with NK92 cell line demonstrated that leukemia cells with upregulated HSP70 can be successfully killed by effector cells. We consider our data as a new view of CD99 functions and as a basis for the development of a potential anti-tumor strategy based on heat-shock protein activation via CD99 triggering.