SAMHD1 Is Variably Expressed in Mantle Cell Lymphoma and Correlated to SOX11 but Not to Survival

Introduction

Mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) is an incurable disease with a median survival of 3-5 years. Most cases express SOX11, a transcription factor associated with MCL pathobiology, which serves as a diagnostic marker. Current standard first-line therapy for younger MCL patients is rituximab with cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone (R-CHOP) and cytarabine (Ara-C), consolidated with high dose chemotherapy with autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT), which is associated with prolonged survival (Eskelund et al. Br J Haematol 2016). Ara-C metabolizes into its active triphosphate form Ara-CTP which inhibits proliferation of the malignant cells. Recent reports suggest that the expression of the mammalian dNTPs hydrolase SAMHD1 determines response to Ara-C in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) by hydrolyzing Ara-CTP and thus by diminishing the anti-proliferative properties of Ara-C. Consequently, in vitro downregulation of SAMHD1 resulted in sensitization of AML cells to Ara-C (Herold et al., Nat Med 2017). SAMHD1 also exhibits anti-tumor properties via regulation of dNTP pool and is recurrently mutated in CLL (Clifford et al. Blood 2014) and T-PLL (Johansson et al. Blood Cancer J. 2018). In CLL a role in DNA-repair has been suggested (Clifford et al. Blood 2014). Thus, SAMHD1 may function as a tumor suppressor. In this study, we investigated for the first time the expression patterns of SAMHD1 in MCL and its association to clinical outcome, especially in patients receiving Ara-C as part of induction for ASCT.

Methods

SAMHD1 and SOX11 expression was investigated by qPCR, WB and IHC on whole tissue sections or tissue microarrays. MCL cell lines were treated with gene-specific siRNA for SAMHD1 or SOX11. Data on overall survival (OS) was retrieved from patient records. For patients included in the Nordic MCL2 and MCL3 trials data on progression free survival (PFS) and OS were retrieved.

Results

Initial IHC showed that expression of SAMHD1 is high in normal T-cells and macrophages and low in cells in the mantle zones of reactive tonsils. Co-staining with CD20 in a heterogeneously treated cohort of primary MCL (n=104) showed a large variation between cases (median 73.15%, range: 0.4%-99.6%) and the staining intensity was lower than in T-cells. Sixty two/104 samples were also evaluated for SOX11 expression and the percentage of SOX11 positive cells moderately correlated with SAMHD1 expression (Spearman correlation coefficient 0.27, p=0.036). Analysis of mRNA expression (normalized to mRNA levels of respective genes in Granta519 cell line) of SAMHD1 (median RFI: 2.09, range: 0.18-10.69) and SOX11 (median RFI: 2.00, range: 0.00-7.11) in flow cytometry sorted primary MCL cells (n=19) showed a trend for correlation (Spearman correlation coefficient 0.45, p=0.053). However, downregulation of SOX11 by siRNA did not alter the expression of SAMHD1 and neither did downregulation of SAMHD1 by siRNA change the expression of SOX11 suggesting that the observed correlation is not due to a mutual regulation. We investigated the relation of SAMHD1 expression to clinical and pathological parameters in this cohort and found no correlation to OS, blastoid morphology, proliferation (% Ki67+ tumor cells) nor p53 positivity (>20% positively stained cells). Further, a cohort of patients treated within the Nordic MCL2 and MCL3 protocols (n=51) were investigated for SAMHD1 expression by IHC. Interestingly the distribution of SAMHD1 expression was different in this cohort (median 34.9%, range: 2.2%-97.1%; Mann-Whitney p=0.0019). Survival analysis showed a trend for better PFS and OS in patients with high (>75% SAMHD1 positive cells) and low (<25% positive cells) SAMHD1, although the differences were not significant (Kaplan-Meier with log rank test, p=0.053).

Conclusions

In MCL the expression of SAMHD1 varies over a broad range and correlates to expression of SOX11. However, no significant difference in PFS or OS among patients receiving Ara-C containing induction chemotherapy is found in this study.