1. T-bet suppresses proliferation of malignant B cells in chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
- Author
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Roessner PM, Seufert I, Chapaprieta V, Jayabalan R, Briesch H, Massoni-Badosa R, Boskovic P, Benckendorff J, Roider T, Arseni L, Coelho M, Chakraborty S, Vaca AM, Sivina M, Muckenhuber M, Rodriguez-Rodriguez S, Bonato A, Herbst SA, Zapatka M, Sun C, Kretzmer H, Naake T, Bruch PM, Czernilofsky F, Ten Hacken E, Schneider M, Helm D, Yosifov DY, Kauer J, Danilov AV, Bewarder M, Heyne K, Schneider C, Stilgenbauer S, Wiestner A, Mallm JP, Burger JA, Efremov DG, Lichter P, Dietrich S, Martin-Subero JI, Rippe K, and Seiffert M
- Subjects
- Animals, Humans, Mice, B-Lymphocytes pathology, B-Lymphocytes metabolism, B-Lymphocytes immunology, Mice, Knockout, Gene Expression Regulation, Leukemic, NF-kappa B metabolism, Leukemia, Lymphocytic, Chronic, B-Cell pathology, Leukemia, Lymphocytic, Chronic, B-Cell genetics, Leukemia, Lymphocytic, Chronic, B-Cell immunology, Leukemia, Lymphocytic, Chronic, B-Cell metabolism, T-Box Domain Proteins genetics, T-Box Domain Proteins metabolism, Cell Proliferation
- Abstract
Abstract: The T-box transcription factor T-bet is known as a master regulator of the T-cell response but its role in malignant B cells has not been sufficiently explored. Here, we conducted single-cell resolved multi-omics analyses of malignant B cells from patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and studied a CLL mouse model with a genetic knockout of Tbx21. We found that T-bet acts as a tumor suppressor in malignant B cells by decreasing their proliferation rate. NF-κB activity, induced by inflammatory signals provided by the microenvironment, triggered T-bet expression, which affected promoter-proximal and distal chromatin coaccessibility and controlled a specific gene signature by mainly suppressing transcription. Gene set enrichment analysis identified a positive regulation of interferon signaling and negative control of proliferation by T-bet. In line, we showed that T-bet represses cell cycling and is associated with longer overall survival of patients with CLL. Our study uncovered a novel tumor suppressive role of T-bet in malignant B cells via its regulation of inflammatory processes and cell cycling, which has implications for the stratification and therapy of patients with CLL. Linking T-bet activity to inflammation explains the good prognostic role of genetic alterations in the inflammatory signaling pathways in CLL.
- Published
- 2024
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