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Preprints

Identification and targeting of treatment resistant progenitor populations in T-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Tan K, Xu J, Chen C, Vincent T, Pölönen P, Hu J, Yoshimura S, Yu W, Sussman J, Chen C, Li E, Diorio C, Shraim R, Newman H, Uppuluri L, Li A, Chen G, Bandyopadhyay S, Wu D, Ding Y, Xu J, Lim T, Hsu M, Thadi A, Ahn KJ, Wu C, Peng J, Sun Y, Wang A, Mehta R, Frank D, Meyer L, Loh M, Raetz E, Chen Z, Wood B, Devidas M, Dunsmore K, Winter S, Chang T, Wu G, Pounds S, Zhang N, Carroll W, Hunger S, Bernt K, Yang J, Mullighan C, Teachey D.
Preprint from
Research Square
30 October 2023
PPR
PPR750243
Abstract
Refractoriness to initial chemotherapy and relapse after remission are the main obstacles to cure in T-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (T-ALL). Biomarker guided risk stratification and targeted therapy have the potential to improve outcomes in high-risk T-ALL; however, cellular and genetic factors contributing to treatment resistance remain unknown. Previous bulk genomic studies in T-ALL have implicated tumor heterogeneity as an unexplored mechanism for treatment failure. To link tumor subpopulations with clinical outcome, we created an atlas of healthy pediatric hematopoiesis and applied single-cell multiomic (CITE-seq/snATAC-seq) analysis to a cohort of 40 cases of T-ALL treated on the Children’s Oncology Group AALL0434 clinical trial. The cohort was carefully selected to capture the immunophenotypic diversity of T-ALL, with early T-cell precursor (ETP) and Near/Non-ETP subtypes represented, as well as enriched with both relapsed and treatment refractory cases. Integrated analyses of T-ALL blasts and normal T-cell precursors identified a bone-marrow progenitor-like (BMP-like) leukemia sub-population associated with treatment failure and poor overall survival. The single-cell-derived molecular signature of BMP-like blasts predicted poor outcome across multiple subtypes of T-ALL within two independent patient cohorts using bulk RNA-sequencing data from over 1300 patients. We defined the mutational landscape of BMP-like T-ALL, finding that NOTCH1 mutations additively drive T-ALL blasts away from the BMP-like state. We transcriptionally matched BMP-like blasts to early thymic seeding progenitors that have low NR3C1 expression and high stem cell gene expression, corresponding to a corticosteroid and conventional cytotoxic resistant phenotype we observed in ex vivo drug screening. To identify novel targets for BMP-like blasts, we performed in silico and in vitro drug screening against the BMP-like signature and prioritized BMP-like overexpressed cell-surface (CD44, ITGA4, LGALS1) and intracellular proteins (BCL-2, MCL-1, BTK, NF-κB) as candidates for precision targeted therapy. We established patient derived xenograft models of BMP-high and BMP-low leukemias, which revealed vulnerability of BMP-like blasts to apoptosis-inducing agents, TEC-kinase inhibitors, and proteasome inhibitors. Our study establishes the first multi-omic signatures for rapid risk-stratification and targeted treatment of high-risk T-ALL.