Immune-cell depleted diffuse large B-cell lymphomas have reduced expression of MHC class I

Abstract

Immunotherapy has transformed treatment for many cancers. In the aggressive and genetically heterogeneous diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), CD19 CAR T-cell therapy is highly effective, whereas immune checkpoint blockade has shown limited benefit. Loss of MHC expression is a common mechanism to escape T-cell cytotoxicity, and loss of MHC class I (MHC-I) and II are frequent in DLBCL. We applied imaging mass cytometry to diagnostic biopsies from younger, high-risk DLBCL patients to map the tumor microenvironment (TME) spatial architecture in relation to tumor cell MHC expression, mutational status, transcriptomic and proteomic profiles. Neighborhood analyses identified four TME subtypes: immune-cell depleted and three immune-infiltrated types (mixed, CD4 T cell-rich, CD8 T-cell/macrophage-rich). Depleted cases had shorter overall survival (p = 0.033) and increased expression of proteins involved in DNA replication and proliferation markers compared to infiltrated cases. Tumor cell MHC-I expression was heterogeneous. Cases with low frequency of MHC-I-pos tumor cells were enriched for the depleted TME type. MHC-I-pos tumor cells were surrounded by CD4 and CD8 T cells and M1 macrophages, whereas MHC-I-neg tumor cells were closer to other MHC-I-neg tumor cells. These findings suggest that TME-based classification incorporating tumor cell MHC-I status may improve individualized immunotherapy selection.