Neglected players: Tumor associated neutrophils involvement in chronic lymphocytic leukemia progression

DENISE RISNIK; ENRIQUE PODAZA

Oncotarget

Impact Journals

Lugar: nueva york; Año: 2019

1949-2553

The old paradigm that establishes that neutrophils are just short half-life cells committed to kill bacteria in situ at early stages of infection is changing. Nowadays, there are plenty of reports that focus on neutrophilsparticipation in tumor microenvironment giving rise to the so-called Tumor Associated Neutrophils (TANs). TANs appear to be very sensitive to microenvironment signals increasing their lifespan and displaying remarkable phenotype plasticity and functionality. Even though defining a unique phenotype to classify TANs populations in cancer patients is complicated due to the lack of appropriate surface markers, their role as tumor promoters is supported by clinical observations that associate a higher neutrophil infiltrate at the tumor and/or a high neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio with poor outcome. Most of the reports regarding TANs biology, both in murine models and patients, are in the context of solid tumors. In 2016, our group described for the first time that neutrophils from Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia CLL) patients were prone to release extracellular traps (NETs) and that these structures promote leukemic cells activation and survival. These findings encourage us to think about the possibility that leukemic cells could drive TANs differentiation in CLL.