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Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemias

Dendritic cell deficiencies in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients

Leukemia volume 20, pages 645–649 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) cells are particularly poor at generating anti-leukemia immunity, despite residing in lymphoid organs. To assess a potential role of dendritic cells (DC) in poor anti-leukemia immunity, we analyzed peripheral blood DC in 55 pediatric ALL patients at the time of initial diagnosis and 19 age-matched healthy controls. Dendritic cells were identified by their expression of HLA-DR, lack of B, T, NK, and monocyte markers, and expression of CD11c (myeloid DC(mDC)) or BDCA-2 (plasmacytoid DC(pDC)) using flow cytometry. We found that in children with B-lineage ALL, numbers of both mDC and pDC were significantly reduced (P=0.0001). In contrast, T-lineage ALL patients showed normal pDC and significantly elevated mDC (P=0.003) levels, with normal expression of HLA-DR and co-stimulatory molecules. A decrease in DC could not be explained by general impairment of myelopoiesis, as we could not demonstrate a correlation of DC numbers with granulocyte/monocyte numbers in patients with B-lineage ALL. However, aberrant expression of myeloid surface markers on leukemic blasts was frequent in patients lacking myeloid DC indicating a potential block of DC differentiation. Thus, depletion of DC in B-lineage ALL patients may contribute to poor anti-leukemia immune responses.

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Acknowledgements

We are indebted to our patients and healthy blood donors, their parents and physicians for the commitment to this study. We thank A Frank-Hoppe for excellent study support. This work was supported by a grant of the Kind-Philipp-Stiftung für Leukämieforschung (BM, DM) and Hannover Medical School (HiLF).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

    B Maecker, D Mougiakakos, M Zimmermann, M Behrens, S Hollander, K Welte & C Klein

  2. Department of Pediatrics, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Kiel, Germany

    A Schrauder & M Schrappe

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  1. B Maecker
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  2. D Mougiakakos
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  3. M Zimmermann
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  4. M Behrens
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  6. A Schrauder
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  7. M Schrappe
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  8. K Welte
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  9. C Klein
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Correspondence to B Maecker.

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Maecker, B., Mougiakakos, D., Zimmermann, M. et al. Dendritic cell deficiencies in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients. Leukemia 20, 645–649 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.leu.2404146

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