PLoS ONE (Jan 2017)

HLA specificities are associated with prognosis in IGHV-mutated CLL-like high-count monoclonal B cell lymphocytosis.

  • María García-Álvarez,
  • Miguel Alcoceba,
  • Miriam López-Parra,
  • Noemí Puig,
  • Alicia Antón,
  • Ana Balanzategui,
  • Isabel Prieto-Conde,
  • Cristina Jiménez,
  • María E Sarasquete,
  • M Carmen Chillón,
  • María Laura Gutiérrez,
  • Rocío Corral,
  • José María Alonso,
  • José Antonio Queizán,
  • Julia Vidán,
  • Emilia Pardal,
  • María Jesús Peñarrubia,
  • José M Bastida,
  • Ramón García-Sanz,
  • Luis Marín,
  • Marcos González

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0172978
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 3
p. e0172978

Abstract

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Molecular alterations leading progression of asymptomatic CLL-like high-count monoclonal B lymphocytosis (hiMBL) to chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) remain poorly understood. Recently, genome-wide association studies have found 6p21.3, where the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) system is coded, to be a susceptibility risk region for CLL. Previous studies have produced discrepant results regarding the association between HLA and CLL development and outcome, but no studies have been performed on hiMBL.We evaluated the role of HLA class I (-A, -B and -C) and class II (-DRB1 and -DQB1) in hiMBL/CLL susceptibility, hiMBL progression to CLL, and treatment requirement in a large series of 263 patients diagnosed in our center with hiMBL (n = 156) or Binet A CLL (n = 107).No consistent association between HLA specificities and hiMBL or CLL susceptibility was found. With a median follow-up of 7.7 years, 48/156 hiMBLs (33%) evolved to asymptomatic CLLs, while 16 hiMBLs (10%) and 44 CLLs (41%) required treatment. No HLA specificities were found to be significantly associated with hiMBL progression or treatment in the whole cohort. However, within antigen-experienced immunoglobulin heavy-chain (IGHV)-mutated hiMBLs, which represents the highest proportion of hiMBL cases (81%), the presence of HLA-DQB1*03 showed a trend to a higher risk of progression to CLL (60% vs. 26%, P = 0.062). Moreover, HLA-DQB1*02 specificity was associated with a lesser requirement for 15-year treatment (10% vs. 36%, P = 0.012).In conclusion, our results suggest a role for HLA in IGHV-mutated hiMBL prognosis, and are consistent with the growing evidence of the influence of 6p21 on predisposition to CLL. Larger non-biased series are required to enable definitive conclusions to be drawn.