Evidence for Non-Cancer-Specific T Cell Exhaustion in the Tcl1 Mouse Model for Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

Int J Mol Sci. 2021 Jun 22;22(13):6648. doi: 10.3390/ijms22136648.

Abstract

The reinvigoration of anti-cancer immunity by immune checkpoint therapies has greatly improved cancer treatment. In chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), patients as well as in the Tcl1 mouse model for CLL, PD1-expressing, exhausted T cells significantly expand alongside CLL development; nevertheless, PD1 inhibition has no clinical benefit. Hence, exhausted T cells are either not activatable by simple PD1 blocking in CLL and/or only an insufficient number of exhausted T cells are CLL-specific. In this study, we examined the latter hypothesis by exploiting the Tcl1 transgenic CLL mouse model in combination with TCR transgene expression specific for a non-cancer antigen. Following CLL tumor development, increased PD1 levels were detected on non-CLL specific T cells that seem dependent on the presence of (tumor-) antigen-specific T cells. Transcriptome analysis confirmed a similar exhaustion phenotype of non-CLL specific and endogenous PD1pos T cells. Our results indicate that in the CLL mouse model, a substantial fraction of non-CLL specific T cells becomes exhausted during disease progression in a bystander effect. These findings have important implications for the general efficacy assessment of immune checkpoint therapies in CLL.

Keywords: CLL; T cell exhaustion; Tcl1.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Disease Models, Animal
  • Gene Expression Profiling
  • Leukemia, Lymphocytic, Chronic, B-Cell / immunology
  • Leukemia, Lymphocytic, Chronic, B-Cell / physiopathology*
  • Mice
  • Mice, Transgenic
  • Proto-Oncogene Proteins / genetics*
  • T-Lymphocytes / immunology*

Substances

  • Proto-Oncogene Proteins
  • Tcl1 protein, mouse