Publication Date:
2018-11-29
Description:
BACKGROUND: Clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP) involves the peripheral blood (PB) expansion of progeny of a hematopoietic stem or progenitor cell that is somatically mutated in a hematological cancer-associated gene (most often TET2 or DNMT3A). CHIP associates with comorbid diseases of aging such as cardiovascular disease. Murine knockout (Tet2 or Dnmt3a) and engraftment models of CHIP develop exacerbated cardiovascular disease and their mutated myeloid cells are more reactive to inflammatory stimuli. However, whether blood leukocytes in human CHIP are hyper-inflammatory remains speculative. We recently found people with CHIP have higher serum levels of certain pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines than controls (Cook et al, ASH 2017). Thus, we hypothesized that PB effector cells in people with CHIP will be enriched for pro-inflammatory gene expression and pathways. METHODS: The presence of CHIP (variant allele frequency, VAF〉0.02) was determined in the whole PB of 30 hematologically healthy adults 〉65 years old at Baycrest and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centers (Toronto, Canada) using Ion Proton DNA sequencing targeting 48 commonly mutated genes in myeloid neoplasms. RNA-Seq (HISeq 4000, Illumina, 75bp paired-end sequencing reads with a depth of 〉50 million/sample) was performed on corresponding ribo-depleted whole PB samples (PAXgene), reads were aligned with HISAT2, gene counts quantified with featureCount, and analyzed with DESeq2. FDR0.15) associated with higher ECOG scores (poorer overall daily functioning: odds ratio=44, 95% CI=4-500, p=0.002), suggesting that larger proportions of mutated cells may have greater effects on gene expression profiles. Accordingly, there were linear correlations between the VAFs of the mutated cell populations and the levels of differentially expressed genes (Figure 1C). CONCLUSIONS: The connection between mutant clones of CHIP and disease remains poorly elucidated. For the first time, to our knowledge, we studied gene expression in CHIP leukocytes. We report that the most prominent gene expression differences between people with CHIP and those without CHIP involve neutrophil degranulation and the innate immune system. Additionally, higher VAFs may have a greater influence on gene expression levels and health than lower VAFs. We plan to validate these candidate genes in a larger cohort. These novel data warrant further investigation of the cellular pathways perturbed by somatic mutations of CHIP. Disclosures Buckstein: Celgene: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding.
Print ISSN:
0006-4971
Electronic ISSN:
1528-0020
Topics:
Biology
,
Medicine
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