PD-1 and LAG-3 expression in EBV-associated pediatric Hodgkin lymphoma has influence on survival

JIMENEZ, OSCAR; MANGIATERRA, TAMARA; COLLI, SANDRA; GARCÍA LOMBARDI, MERCEDES; PRECIADO, MARIA VICTORIA; DE MATTEO, ELENA; PAOLA ANDREA CHABAY

Frontiers in Oncology

Frontiers

Año: 2022 vol. 12

In pediatric Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), the inability of the cytotoxicmicroenvironment induced by EBV presence to eliminate tumor cells couldreflect the fact that the virus might be able to induce the expression ofexhaustion markers to evade an immune response. Therefore, the expressionof exhaustion markers in pediatric EBV–associated HL was evaluated. A balancebetween cytotoxic GrB and Th1 Tbet markers with regulatory Foxp3 was provedin EBV+ cases. In addition, exclusively in EBV-associated cHL, a correlationbetween PD-1 and LAG-3 expression was observed. Furthermore, those casesalso displayed a trend to worse survival when they expressed LAG-3 and inferiorevent-free survival when both PD-1 and LAG-3 molecules were present.Therefore, even though a cytotoxic and inflammatory environment wassupposed to be triggered by EBV presence in pediatric cHL, it seems that thevirus may also induce the synergic effect of inhibitory molecules LAG-3 and PD-1 in this series. These observations may reflect the fact that the permissive andexhausted immune microenvironment succeeds to induce lymphomagenesis