Increased expression of Autophagy protein LC3 in two patients with progressing chronic lymphocytic leukemia

IRIBARREN, P

Frontiers in Endocrinology

Frontiers Media S.A.

Año: 2020

hronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is the most common type of leukemia in adults, characterized by the expansion of a population of monoclonal CD5+ B lymphocytes that accumulate in the blood, bone marrow, and secondary lymphoid tissues. Some CLL patients remain free of symptoms for decades, whereas others rapidly become symptomatic or develop high-risk disease. Studying autophagy, which may modulate key protein expression and cell survival, may be important for the search of novel prognostic factors and molecules. Here, we applied flow cytometry technology to simultaneously detect autophagy protein LC3B with classical phenotypical markers used for identification of tumoral CLL B cell clones. We found that two patients with progressing CLL showed increased expression of the autophagy protein LC3B, in addition to CD38 and ZAP70 positive expression and unmutated status of IGHV. Our results suggest that activation of autophagy flux may correlate with CLL progression.