AUTHOR=Ruiz-García Raquel , Rodríguez-Vigil Carmen , Marco Francisco Manuel , Gallego-Bustos Fernando , Castro-Panete María José , Diez-Alonso Laura , Muñoz-Ruiz Carlos , Ruiz-Contreras Jesús , Paz-Artal Estela , González-Granado Luis Ignacio , Allende Luis Miguel TITLE=Acquired Senescent T-Cell Phenotype Correlates with Clinical Severity in GATA Binding Protein 2-Deficient Patients JOURNAL=Frontiers in Immunology VOLUME=8 YEAR=2017 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2017.00802 DOI=10.3389/fimmu.2017.00802 ISSN=1664-3224 ABSTRACT=

GATA binding protein 2 (GATA2) deficiency is a rare disorder of hematopoiesis, lymphatics, and immunity caused by spontaneous or autosomal dominant mutations in the GATA2 gene. Clinical manifestations range from neutropenia, lymphedema, deafness, to severe viral and mycobacterial infections, bone marrow failure, and acute myeloid leukemia. Patients also present with monocytopenia, dendritic cell, B- and natural killer (NK)-cell deficiency. We studied the T-cell and NK-cell compartments of four GATA2-deficient patients to assess if changes in these lymphocyte populations could be correlated with clinical phenotype. Patients with more severe clinical complications demonstrated a senescent T-cell phenotype whereas patients with lower clinical score had undetectable changes relative to controls. In contrast, patients’ NK-cells demonstrated an immature/activated phenotype that did not correlate with clinical score, suggesting an intrinsic NK-cell defect. These studies will help us to determine the contribution of T- and NK-cell dysregulation to the clinical phenotype of GATA2 patients, and may help to establish the most accurate therapeutic options for these patients. Asymptomatic patients may be taken into consideration for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation when dysregulation of T-cell and NK-cell compartment is present.