Polyclonal lymphoid expansion drives paraneoplastic autoimmunity in neuroblastoma.

Journal: Cell Reports
Published:
Abstract

Neuroblastoma is a lethal childhood solid tumor of developing peripheral nerves. Two percent of children with neuroblastoma develop opsoclonus myoclonus ataxia syndrome (OMAS), a paraneoplastic disease characterized by cerebellar and brainstem-directed autoimmunity but typically with outstanding cancer-related outcomes. We compared tumor transcriptomes and tumor-infiltrating T and B cell repertoires from 38 OMAS subjects with neuroblastoma to 26 non-OMAS-associated neuroblastomas. We found greater B and T cell infiltration in OMAS-associated tumors compared to controls and showed that both were polyclonal expansions. Tertiary lymphoid structures (TLSs) were enriched in OMAS-associated tumors. We identified significant enrichment of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II allele HLA-DOB∗01:01 in OMAS patients. OMAS severity scores were associated with the expression of several candidate autoimmune genes. We propose a model in which polyclonal auto-reactive B lymphocytes act as antigen-presenting cells and drive TLS formation, thereby supporting both sustained polyclonal T cell-mediated anti-tumor immunity and paraneoplastic OMAS neuropathology.

Authors
Miriam Rosenberg, Erez Greenstein, Martin Buchkovich, Ayelet Peres, Eric Santoni Rugiu, Lei Yang, Martin Mikl, Zalman Vaksman, David Gibbs, Dan Reshef, Amy Salovin, Meredith Irwin, Arlene Naranjo, Igor Ulitsky, Pedro De Alarcon, Katherine Matthay, Victor Weigman, Gur Yaari, Jessica Panzer, Nir Friedman, John Maris