The expressions and clinical significance of programmed death 1/programmed death ligand 1 in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia / 中华实用儿科临床杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To investigate the mechanism of programmed death 1(PD-1)/ programmed death ligand 1(PD-L1) signaling pathway and its feasibility as a potential therapeutic target and prognostic predictor by detecting the expressions, of PD-1 and PD-L1 in bone marrow mononuclear cells of children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), and to provide new ideas for the diagnosis and treatment of ALL as well.Methods:Bone marrow samples were collected from 59 children with ALL in the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University from September 2018 to July 2019.Flow cytometry was applied to detect the expression of PD-1 and PD-L1 in bone marrow mononuclear cells in 59 ALL patients, including 47 newly-diagnosed ALL patients and 12 relapsed ALL patients, respectively, at initial diagnosis, after induction therapy and early intensive treatment.Their relevant clinical data were collected and compared with the bone marrow specimens of 12 children suffering from non-malignant blood diseases as the control group of the same hospital during the same period.Results:There was no significant difference in the expression of PD-1 in the bone marrow mononuclear cells of the primary diagnosis group, recurrence group and control group ( H=2.402, P>0.05). The expression of PD-L1 in the relapsed and refractory group [(7.32±3.60)%] and the newly diagnosed group [(3.18±2.37)%] was higher than that in the control group [(0.84±0.39)%], and the differences were statistically significant ( H= 28.048, P<0.05). In the initial treatment group, the expression of PD-L1 in the bone marrow mononuclear cells was the strongest expression before treatment ( B=1.293), followed by after induction treatment ( B=0.036) and after early intensive treatment ( B=0.000), suggesting that there was a downward trend as the continued treatment.The expression of PD-L1 was the weakest expression in the low-risk group ( B=-3.912) than in the medium-risk group ( B=-3.595) and high-risk group ( B=0.000), revealing that the expression of PD-L1 is related to the risk grades of ALL.The higher the risk rating is, the higher the PD-L1 protein expression is. Conclusions:The high expression of PD-L1 may be involved in the pathogenesis and be used as an adverse predictor of ALL childhood and an evaluation index of chemotherapy efficacy.PD-1 / PD-L1 signaling pathway may be a potential therapeutic target of ALL childhood.