Browsing by Author "Baessa, Marina Catunda"
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- Determining the impact of dendritic cells in T-cell leukemia/lymphomaPublication . Baessa, Marina Catunda; Santos, Nuno R. dos; Link, WolfgangT-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia and lymphoblastic lymphoma, are malignancies originating from T-cell precursor, which undergo a developmental arrest at variable stages of maturation. These diseases originate in the thymus, and then spread throughout the body, being fatal without proper and attempted treatment. Microenvironmental cells can support both the initiation, and progression of disease. This microenvironment is composed several cells, including thymic epithelial cells, fibroblasts, macrophages and dendritic cells (DCs). Study of a mouse model of T-cell leukemia/lymphoma revealed significant alterations in thymic stromal cell composition, including an increase of in DCs. Based on this evidence, the present work aimed to identify which DCs, and in what proportion, are increased in leukemic TEL-JAK2 transgenic mice. Moreover, we aimed to assess the possible impact of a specific DC subset, namely the resident DCs, in the leukemia/lymphoma development, by crossing TEL-JAK2 transgenic mice, with Batf3 knockout, which lack resident CD8α+ DCs. A significant increase in the total DC population of the thymus was observed in leukemic mice, although the specific subsets of DCs analyzed, namely plamacytoid and conventional DCs, along with resident and migratory conventional DCs, did not demonstrate significant alterations. TEL-JAK2 transgenic Batf3 knockout mice did not differ from Batf3 heterozygous littermates, regarding the age of leukemia onset (median survival of 11.75 and 11.5 weeks, respectively) and lymphoid and non-lymphoid organ weight. Leukemia cell invasion analysis showed that the Batf3 knockout transgenic mice had a higher level of organ invasion than heterozygous littermates, which might indicate that the absence of CD8α+ DCs attenuates the invasion potential of the leukemic cells. Our work provides evidence that DCs proportions are increased in the thymus of leukemic mice, and that CD8α+ DCs specifically might probably have a role in control of leukemic cells propagation throughout the body.