Project description:Gene products from the highly variable major histocompatibility locus, including HLA, are essential for self-recognition and immune surveillance of malignancy. Following allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (alloHCT), genetic and epigenetic alterations in HLA can drive disease recurrence, making precise HLA assessment critical for determination of future therapy. However, current methods lack the sensitivity to quantify HLA transcripts at the single cell level, limiting their clinical utility. We introduce scrHLA-typing, a novel method that accurately identifies and quantifies HLA transcripts in single cells using hybridization capture and long-read sequencing. When applied to samples from patients with post-transplant relapse, scrHLA-typing successfully detected allele-specific expression of MHC gene products at clinically actionable levels. By characterizing allele expression in residual leukemia cells, our assay identified differences in expression patterns among patients. This capability highlights scrHLA-typing’s potential to improve risk stratification and guide the selection of appropriate salvage therapies, enhancing personalized treatment strategies after post-transplant relapse.
Project description:Gene products from the highly variable major histocompatibility locus, including HLA, are essential for self-recognition and immune surveillance of malignancy. Following allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (alloHCT), genetic and epigenetic alterations in HLA can drive disease recurrence, making precise HLA assessment critical for determination of future therapy. However, current methods lack the sensitivity to quantify HLA transcripts at the single cell level, limiting their clinical utility. We introduce scrHLA-typing, a novel method that accurately identifies and quantifies HLA transcripts in single cells using hybridization capture and long-read sequencing. When applied to samples from patients with post-transplant relapse, scrHLA-typing successfully detected allele-specific expression of MHC gene products at clinically actionable levels. By characterizing allele expression in residual leukemia cells, our assay identified differences in expression patterns among patients. This capability highlights scrHLA-typing’s potential to improve risk stratification and guide the selection of appropriate salvage therapies, enhancing personalized treatment strategies after post-transplant relapse.
Project description:Gene products from the highly variable major histocompatibility locus, including HLA, are essential for self-recognition and immune surveillance of malignancy. Following allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (alloHCT), genetic and epigenetic alterations in HLA can drive disease recurrence, making precise HLA assessment critical for determination of future therapy. However, current methods lack the sensitivity to quantify HLA transcripts at the single cell level, limiting their clinical utility. We introduce scrHLA-typing, a novel method that accurately identifies and quantifies HLA transcripts in single cells using hybridization capture and long-read sequencing. When applied to samples from patients with post-transplant relapse, scrHLA-typing successfully detected allele-specific expression of MHC gene products at clinically actionable levels. By characterizing allele expression in residual leukemia cells, our assay identified differences in expression patterns among patients. This capability highlights scrHLA-typing’s potential to improve risk stratification and guide the selection of appropriate salvage therapies, enhancing personalized treatment strategies after post-transplant relapse.
Project description:A targeted RNA-based method for typing of 12 classical HLA genes using Oxford Nanopore sequencing. In the method, were enriched HLA genes from cDNA of 50 individuals using gene-specific reverse primers. The library molecules were then barcoded, pooled into 2 separate gene pools, and sequenced on MinION R9.4 SpotON flow cells.
Project description:In cervical cancer, an important mechanism by which tumour cells escape immune surveillance is loss of HLA class I, enabling tumours to evade recognition and lysis by cytotoxic T lymphocytes. Some tumours, however, escape from immune surveillance without accumulating defects in antigen presentation. We hypothesized that tumours with no or partial loss of HLA class I develop alternative mechanisms to prevent immune surveillance. To investigate this hypothesis, genome-wide expression profiling using Illumina arrays was performed on cervical squamous cell carcinomas showing overall loss of HLA class I, partial and normal HLA class I protein expression. Statistical analyses revealed no significant differences in gene expression between tumours with partial (n = 11) and normal HLA class I expression (n = 10). Comparison of tumours with normal/partial HLA class I expression (n = 21) with those with overall loss of HLA class I expression (n = 11) identified 150 differentially expressed genes. Most of these genes were involved in the defense response (n = 27), and, in particular, inflammatory and acute phase responses. Especially SerpinA1 and SerpinA3 were found to be upregulated in HLA positive tumours (3.6 and 8.2 fold, respectively), and this was confirmed by real-time PCR and immunohistochemistry. In a group of 117 tumours, high SerpinA1 and SerpinA3 expression in association with normal/partial HLA expression correlated significantly with poor overall survival (p = 0.035 and p = 0.05, respectively). This study shows that HLA positive tumours are characterized by a higher expression of genes associated with an inflammatory profile and that expression of the acute phase proteins SerpinA1 and SerpinA3 in HLA positive tumours is associated with worse prognosis. Keywords: Cell type comparison