Immunogenetic Architecture of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia at Early Stage: Insights from the O-CLL1 Cohort

TL;DR

This study examines the immunoglobulin gene patterns in early-stage chronic lymphocytic leukemia, revealing insights into how the disease evolves.

Contribution

The study identifies a biased immunoglobulin repertoire in early CLL, highlighting antigen-driven selection as a key factor.

Findings

The IGHV repertoire in early CLL closely mirrors that of a real-world cohort, suggesting it is defined at diagnosis.

Subset #4 is over-represented in mutated IGHV cases, indicating selective expansion rather than recombinational bias.

Subset #4 cases retain canonical HCDR3 motifs and show similar treatment timelines to other mutated CLL cases.

Abstract

Background/Objectives: The immunoglobulin heavy-chain variable (IGHV) gene repertoire represents a characteristic feature of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), although its configuration is not well defined at the early disease stages. The IGHV repertoire of a cohort of early CLL patients was analyzed and compared to that of a “real-world” reference cohort. Methods: Patients from the O-CLL1 observational protocol, which enrolled only Binet stage A cases within twelve months from diagnosis, were studied. IGHV/IGHJ rearrangements were sequenced and annotated following ERIC recommendations, and stereotyped subsets were assigned using ARResT/AssignSubsets. The repertoire features were compared with the dataset of a real-world cohort of patients with heterogeneous staging (CTR cohort) and with published early-diagnosis series. Results: IGHV and IGHJ gene distributions and HCDR3-length profiles in O-CLL1 closely mirrored those of CTR, indicating that the BcR IG repertoire at diagnosis is already defined rather than being selected during disease progression. Mutated IGHV (M-CLL) predominated, with a frequency of stereotyped BcR IG comparable to that of other early-diagnosis cohorts. However, within this conserved framework, subset #4 was over-represented among M-CLL from O-CLL without an increased overall IGHV4-34 gene usage, suggestive of a selective expansion rather than a recombinational bias. Subset #4 cases retained canonical HCDR3 motifs and showed time-to-first-treatment like other M-CLL, likely reflecting the younger age structure of O-CLL1. Conclusions: Early-diagnosis CLL displays a biased IGHV repertoire with stereotyped configurations characteristic of CLL, including subsets that are rare in the normal B-cell repertoire. These findings support a central role for antigen-driven selection in shaping CLL evolution.

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