Characterization of Cancer Immune Landscape in Primary Central Nervous System Lymphoma

Abstract

Objective: Primary central nervous system lymphoma (PCNSL) is a rare and aggressive extranodal variant of non-Hodgkinlymphomas with disease confined to the brain, spinal cord, leptomeninges, or orbit, without evidence of systemic involve ment. PCNSL has a poor prognosis, with a median overall survival of 30–50 months. We used NanoString Technologies tocharacterize the cancer immune profiles in PCNSL and associated the findings with clinical outcome. Materials and Methods: A total of 33 patients between 2005 and 2017 were included in our study, and clinical informa tion was collected. A PanCancer IO 360 panel (NanoString Technologies) was used to assess the expression level of 770genes related to tumor immunity in 12 samples. We also investigated the programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) expressionand T-cell infiltrate in 25 PCNSL samples using immunohistochemistry. Results: NanoString analysis showed that gene expressions differed between human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positiveand HIV-negative PCNSL. We identified four genes with deregulated expressions (adjusted p