Influence of polyfunctional Tbet

Introduction: T-cell dysfunction is a hallmark of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), but the extent to which individual CD4 Methods: Pre-treatment blood samples from 138 CLL patients receiving initial chemoimmunotherapy containing bendamustine or chlorambucil in the NCRI RIAltO trial (NCT01678430; EudraCT 2011-000919-22) were subjected to deep immunophenotyping by mass cytometry using a bespoke panel of 37 antibodies. T-cell clusters were identified through unsupervised clustering and related to treatment outcomes. Additionally, a randomly selected cohort of 30 CLL patients underwent T-cell stimulation with anti-CD3/CD28 microbeads, followed by cytokine analysis using a separate 36-antibody panel, which included seven cytokines. Results: Seventeen CD4 Conclusion: Our study provides new insights into the potential for Tbet+ T-cell subpopulations to influence and predict specific clinical events in CLL. This, in turn, raises the possibility that these respective subpopulations could play an important role in controlling infection, solid tumours and CLL itself. Clinical Trial Registration: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/, identifier NCT01678430; https://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN09988575, identifier EudraCT 2011-000919-22.