CCR4 expression in a case of cutaneous Richter's transformation of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) to diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) and in CLL patients with no skin manifestations.

NANNINI PAULA ROMINA; BORGE MERCEDES; MIKOLAITIS VANESA CARLA; ABREU CECILI; MORANDE PABLO; ZANETTI SAMANTA ROMINA; OPPEZZO PABLO; PALACIOS FERNANDA; LEDESMA IGNACIO; BEZARES RAIMUNDO FERNANDO; GIORDANO MIRTA; GAMBERALE ROMINA

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF HAEMATOLOGY

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2011 vol. 87 p. 80 - 86

0902-4441

Objective: Richter’s transformation of B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) to cutaneous diffuse largeB-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is very rare. We took the advantage of one of these cases to test the hypothesisthat the chemokine receptor CCR4 is involved in the homing of CLL cells to skin. Patients and Methods:We evaluated CCR4 expression by flow cytometry in both circulating and skin CD19+ leukemic cellsfrom a patient with cutaneous DLBCL. As controls, we used peripheral blood samples from CLL patientswithout skin manifestations and from elderly healthy donors. Results: We found that both DLBCL cellsderived from the original CLL clone and circulating CLL cells from this patient expressed CCR4. Althoughit was previously reported that CCR4 is not expressed in CLL cells, we found that a low but significantproportion of leukemic cells from CLL patients with no skin manifestations do express CCR4. There was apositive correlation between the expression of CCR4 and the percentage of ZAP-70 of each sample. Moreover,we consistently observed a higher expression of CCR4 within CD19+CD38+ and CD19+Ki67+ subsetscompared to CD19+CD38) and CD19+Ki67) lymphocytes from the same sample, respectively. Conclusion:We conclude that the chemokine receptor CCR4 is not a special feature of CLL cells with skin manifestation,but rather it is expressed in a low but significant proportion of peripheral blood CLL cells.