EP2313519A1 - In vitro diagnosis/prognosis method and kit for assessment of tolerance in liver transplantation - Google Patents
In vitro diagnosis/prognosis method and kit for assessment of tolerance in liver transplantationInfo
- Publication number
- EP2313519A1 EP2313519A1 EP09772548A EP09772548A EP2313519A1 EP 2313519 A1 EP2313519 A1 EP 2313519A1 EP 09772548 A EP09772548 A EP 09772548A EP 09772548 A EP09772548 A EP 09772548A EP 2313519 A1 EP2313519 A1 EP 2313519A1
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- European Patent Office
- Prior art keywords
- genes
- tol
- tolerance
- microarray
- tolerant
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- C—CHEMISTRY; METALLURGY
- C12—BIOCHEMISTRY; BEER; SPIRITS; WINE; VINEGAR; MICROBIOLOGY; ENZYMOLOGY; MUTATION OR GENETIC ENGINEERING
- C12Q—MEASURING OR TESTING PROCESSES INVOLVING ENZYMES, NUCLEIC ACIDS OR MICROORGANISMS; COMPOSITIONS OR TEST PAPERS THEREFOR; PROCESSES OF PREPARING SUCH COMPOSITIONS; CONDITION-RESPONSIVE CONTROL IN MICROBIOLOGICAL OR ENZYMOLOGICAL PROCESSES
- C12Q1/00—Measuring or testing processes involving enzymes, nucleic acids or microorganisms; Compositions therefor; Processes of preparing such compositions
- C12Q1/68—Measuring or testing processes involving enzymes, nucleic acids or microorganisms; Compositions therefor; Processes of preparing such compositions involving nucleic acids
- C12Q1/6876—Nucleic acid products used in the analysis of nucleic acids, e.g. primers or probes
- C12Q1/6881—Nucleic acid products used in the analysis of nucleic acids, e.g. primers or probes for tissue or cell typing, e.g. human leukocyte antigen [HLA] probes
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- G—PHYSICS
- G01—MEASURING; TESTING
- G01N—INVESTIGATING OR ANALYSING MATERIALS BY DETERMINING THEIR CHEMICAL OR PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
- G01N33/00—Investigating or analysing materials by specific methods not covered by groups G01N1/00 - G01N31/00
- G01N33/48—Biological material, e.g. blood, urine; Haemocytometers
- G01N33/50—Chemical analysis of biological material, e.g. blood, urine; Testing involving biospecific ligand binding methods; Immunological testing
- G01N33/68—Chemical analysis of biological material, e.g. blood, urine; Testing involving biospecific ligand binding methods; Immunological testing involving proteins, peptides or amino acids
- G01N33/6893—Chemical analysis of biological material, e.g. blood, urine; Testing involving biospecific ligand binding methods; Immunological testing involving proteins, peptides or amino acids related to diseases not provided for elsewhere
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- C—CHEMISTRY; METALLURGY
- C12—BIOCHEMISTRY; BEER; SPIRITS; WINE; VINEGAR; MICROBIOLOGY; ENZYMOLOGY; MUTATION OR GENETIC ENGINEERING
- C12Q—MEASURING OR TESTING PROCESSES INVOLVING ENZYMES, NUCLEIC ACIDS OR MICROORGANISMS; COMPOSITIONS OR TEST PAPERS THEREFOR; PROCESSES OF PREPARING SUCH COMPOSITIONS; CONDITION-RESPONSIVE CONTROL IN MICROBIOLOGICAL OR ENZYMOLOGICAL PROCESSES
- C12Q2600/00—Oligonucleotides characterized by their use
- C12Q2600/158—Expression markers
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- G—PHYSICS
- G01—MEASURING; TESTING
- G01N—INVESTIGATING OR ANALYSING MATERIALS BY DETERMINING THEIR CHEMICAL OR PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
- G01N2800/00—Detection or diagnosis of diseases
- G01N2800/24—Immunology or allergic disorders
- G01N2800/245—Transplantation related diseases, e.g. graft versus host disease
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- G—PHYSICS
- G01—MEASURING; TESTING
- G01N—INVESTIGATING OR ANALYSING MATERIALS BY DETERMINING THEIR CHEMICAL OR PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
- G01N2800/00—Detection or diagnosis of diseases
- G01N2800/52—Predicting or monitoring the response to treatment, e.g. for selection of therapy based on assay results in personalised medicine; Prognosis
Definitions
- This invention refers to the field of human medicine, and specifically to the diagnosis of the tolerant state in liver transplant recipients.
- PBMCs peripheral blood mononuclear cells
- immunosuppressive drugs to prevent graft rejection. These drugs are very effective at preventing graft rejection, but they are also associated with severe side effects, such as nephrotoxicity, an augmented risk of opportunistic infections and tumors, and metabolic complications such as diabetes, hyperlipidemia and arterial hypertension. Due to the side effects of immunosuppressive drugs, the induction of tolerance, defined as a state in which the graft maintains a normal function in the absence of chronic immunosuppression, is one of the main goals of research in transplant immunology. Tolerance induction is possible in a great number of experimental models of transplant in rodents.
- the antigen-non specific immune monitoring tests constitute a variety of methodologies aiming at the phenotypic characterization of the recipient immune system, without the use of donor antigen challenges.
- T cell receptor CDR3 length distribution patterns TcLandscape, see 24
- peripheral blood cell immunophenotyping employing flow cytometry
- the TcLandscape technique has been employed in peripheral blood to discriminate between tolerant kidney recipients and recipients experiencing chronic rejection (cf. 25).
- this technique is expensive, is currently only available at one laboratory (Inserm 643 and TcLand Expression in France), and has never been validated in liver transplantation.
- peripheral blood immunophenotyping has been used with peripheral blood samples from both liver and kidney tolerant transplant recipients.
- Two studies addressing this methodology are known to inventors. In the first one, from the University of Pittsburgh in USA (cf. 4), it is said that the ratio between pDC and mDC dendritic cell subsets could discriminate between tolerant and non-tolerant recipients in pediatric liver transplantation. In the second study, from Kyoto (cf. 2), it is said that an increased ratio between delta- 1 and delta-2 gammadelta T cells in peripheral blood is more prevalent in tolerant than in non-tolerant liver recipients. However, none of these tests offers the accuracy required for the widespread clinical application.
- immunosuppressive drugs While the chronic use of immunosuppressive drugs is currently the only means to ensure long-term survival of transplanted allografts, these drugs are expensive and are associated with severe side effects (nephrotoxicity, tumor and infection development, diabetes, cardiovascular complications, etc.) that lead to substantial morbidity and mortality. Hence, any strategy capable of significantly reducing the use of immunosuppressive drugs in transplantation may have a large impact on the health and quality of life of transplant recipients.
- the inventors have previously reported (see 26) that gene expression profiling employing peripheral blood specimens and oligonucleotide microarrays constitutes a high-throughput approach to dissect the biology underlying operational tolerance in human liver transplantation (3).
- the inventors have previously identified a set of genes whose expression varies between TOL and non-TOL.
- the set of genes previously identified comprised the following twenty two: transforming growth factor beta receptor III (TGFBR3, NCBI Gene ID 7049), killer cell lectin- like receptor subfamily B member 1 (KLRBl, NCBI Gene ID 3820), asparagine-linked glycosylation 8 homolog (ALG8, NCBI Gene ID 79053), Fanconi anemia complementation group G (FANCG, NCBI Gene ID 2189), gem associated protein 7 (GEMIN7, NCBI Gene ID 79760), natural killer cell group 7 sequence (NKG7, NCBI Gene ID 4818), RAD23 homolog B of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (RAD23B, NCBI Gene ID 5887), SLAM family member 7 (SLAMF7, NCBI Gene ID 57823), TP53 regulated inhibitor of apoptosis 1 (TRIAPl, NCBI Gene ID 51499), protein phosphatase IB magnesium-dependent beta isoform (PPMlB, NCBI Gene ID 5495), chromosome 10 open reading frame 119
- That second set of genes whose expression can be additionally measured comprises the following 23:
- the current invention relates to the identification of genomic classifiers that would: i) comprise modest number of genes; ii) provide high diagnostic accuracy in the identification of tolerant recipients; and iii) yield reproducible results across different transcriptional platforms.
- the invention relates to the selection of groups of genes, called gene signatures or fingerprints, comprising a small number of genes, allowing an accurate assessment of the tolerant state of a given subject which has been (diagnosis) or is going to be (prognosis) liver transplanted.
- one of the embodiments of present invention deals with a method for in vitro diagnosis/prognosis of the tolerant state of a patient which, has been or is going to be, respectively, subject of a liver transplantation, comprising the steps of:
- KLRFl NCBI51348) and SLAMF7 (NCBI57823); or KLRFl (NCBI51348), NKG7 (NCBI4818), IL2RB (NCBI3560), KLRBl
- NCBI3820 FANCG (NCBI2189) and GNPTAB (NCBI79158); or SLAMF7 (NCBI57823), KLRFl (NCBI51348), CLIC3 (NCBI9022), PSMD14 (NCBI10213), ALG8 (NCBI79053), CX3CR1 (NCBI1524) and RGS3 (NCBI5998) and c) comparing the expression fingerprint of each group of genes with the expression levels of the same group of genes of a control biological sample obtained from a non-tolerant liver transplant recipient requiring on-going immunosuppression therapy and d) having instructions to assess tolerance or non-tolerance to liver transplantation of the patient whose biological sample has been assayed, based on the up- regulation of the expression of any of said group of genes with regard to expression threshold values for each gene of the same group of genes of the control sample.
- the present invention also relates to a method for in vitro diagnosis or prognosis of the tolerant state of a patient which has been or is going to be, respectively, subject of a liver transplantation, comprising the steps of:
- NCBI79158 or SLAMF7 (NCBI57823), KLRFl (NCBI51348), CLIC3 (NCBI9022), PSMD14 (NCBI10213), ALG8 (NCBI79053), CX3CR1 (NCBI1524) and RGS3 (NCBI5998) and b) comparing the expression levels of each group of genes with the expression levels of the same group of genes in a control biological sample obtained from a non-tolerant liver transplant recipient requiring on-going immunosuppression therapy, and c) using instructions to assess tolerance or non-tolerance to liver transplantation of the patient whose biological sample has been assayed, based on the up- regulation of the expression of any of said group of genes with regard to expression threshold values for each gene of the same group of genes of the control sample.
- the biological sample from the patient can be whole blood, blood cells (PBMC and particularly leukocytes), bile fluid or cells there from, urine, and can also include portions of hepatic tissue (in the form of fresh tissue, frozen sections or formalin fixed sections).
- samples may be prepared by any available method or process depending on the subsequent analysis. Methods of isolating total mRNA are also well known.
- Such samples include RNA samples, but also include cDNA synthesized from a mRNA sample isolated from a cell or tissue of interest.
- Such samples also include DNA amplified from the cDNA, and an RNA transcribed from the amplified DNA.
- a preferred biological sample is the blood.
- gene expression levels are measured specifically in V51TCR+ blood cell subtype and, more particularly, that besides expression attributable to genes KLRFl (NCBI51348) and SLAMF7 (NCBI57823), additionally, the gene expression levels of any of the following genes can also be measured: IL2RB (NCBI3560), KLRBl (NCBI3820), CD9 (NCBI928), CD244 (NCBI51744) or CD 160 (NCBIl 1126).
- HCV infection had a striking impact on peripheral blood gene expression patterns, markedly outweighing the effect of tolerance itself in terms of the number of genes influenced.
- the effect of HCV infection on the set of genes most strongly associated with tolerance was however weak, which explains why the 26-probe microarray signature (corresponding to 23 distinct genes) could correctly identify tolerant recipients regardless of HCV infection status.
- Time from transplantation was found to be marginally associated with the PAM-derived 26-probe signature.
- V ⁇ 2TCR+ T cells largely predominate in peripheral blood (>80%), while V ⁇ l TCR+ T cells are the major subtype in tissues such as intestine, liver and spleen.
- peripheral blood V ⁇ l TCR+ T cells expand and typically outnumber V ⁇ 2TCR+ T cells (2, 3).
- V ⁇ l TCR+ T cells greatly influence tolerance-related transcriptional signatures.
- peripheral blood V ⁇ lTCR+ T cells from tolerant liver recipients exhibit unique expression and cell surface traits that distinguish them from those present on either non-tolerant recipients or non-transplanted healthy individuals.
- liver recipients are distinct not only from recipients requiring maintenance immunosuppression, but also from non-transplanted healthy individuals.
- liver recipients In contrast, in operationally tolerant liver recipients there is a manifest influence on expression patterns of cellular components of the innate immune cells while changes in pro-inflammatory pathways are barely noticeable. Furthermore, a role for B cells in liver allograft tolerance is not supported by either immunophenotyping or gene expression data, in contrast to what has been reported in kidney transplantation (8, 9).
- our invention reveals that measurement of the expression levels of a small set of genes in peripheral blood could be useful to accurately identify liver recipients accepting their grafts in the absence of pharmacological immunosuppression. This can be accomplished by either measuring the level of transcription of a very modest set of genes or by quantifying the expression levels of a set of surface proteins in peripheral blood V51TCR+ T cells. Altogether, our invention opens the door to the possibility of withdrawing immunosuppressive drugs in recipients with high likelihood of being tolerant.
- qPCR quantitative real-time PCR
- TOL tolerant liver transplant recipient
- Non-TOL non-tolerant liver transplant recipient
- STA stable live transplant recipients under maintenance immunosuppressive therapy
- SAM significant analysis of microarrays
- PAM predictive analysis of microarrays
- MiPP miPP
- FDR false discovery rate
- EST expressed sequence tag
- HCV hepatitis C virus
- diagnosis means the assessment of the tolerant state of a liver recipient already transplanted patient to whom an immunotherapy protocol post-surgery is required, or not.
- prognosis means the previous assessment of the tolerant state of a patient undergoing liver transplantation before said transplantation takes place.
- the method according to the invention is for the diagnosis of the tolerant state of a patient which has been the subject of a liver transplantation.
- tolerant state means the acceptance of a transplanted liver maintaining normal function in the absence of on-going immunosuppressive therapy.
- the terms “tolerance” and “operational tolerance” are considered as equivalent.
- the gene expression levels are above predetermined cut-off or threshold levels obtained from a control sample.
- the control sample is obtained from a non-tolerant liver transplant recipient requiring on-going immunosuppression therapy that can be called immunosuppression-dependent or non-tolerant (Non-TOL).
- Non-TOL immunosuppression-dependent or non-tolerant
- the threshold values departing from which the compared gene expressions as measured in the patient's samples have to be considered up-regulated are given in Table 2. When no sign appears before the expression figure means up- expression. When sign "-" (minus) appears before the expression figures, means down-expression.
- the differentially expressed genes are either up-regulated or down-regulated in a defined state.
- Up-regulation and “down-regulation” are relative terms meaning that a detectable difference (beyond the contribution of noise in the system used to measure it) is found in the amount of expression of the genes relative to some baseline.
- the baseline is the measured gene expression of the control sample.
- the genes of interest in the tolerant state are up regulated relative to the baseline level using the same measurement method.
- the present invention provides means to use quantitative gene expression to diagnose tolerant liver transplant recipients before immunosuppressive drug withdrawal or reduction is attempted.
- the main application of this is the diagnosis of tolerant liver transplant recipients among patients receiving chronic immunosuppressive therapy. Consequently, it permits the dose reduction or discontinuation of immunosuppressive drugs in those patients identified as tolerant without undergoing rejection. This can result in a substantial decrease in the morbidity/mortality of drug-related side effects. This also means a significant decrease in the financial costs of therapy after liver transplantation.
- Measuring the expression levels of the genes in the sample can be carried out over the transcripts of these genes (messenger RNA) or over the translation products, i.e. the proteins.
- Means for measuring the gene expression must be taken in its broader sense, as any available commercial mean comprising any nucleic acid capable of hybridization which, in turn, might be detected by any available mean, with the gene DNA or mRNA transcripted therefrom.
- Means for measuring gene expression, for the purpose of present invention cover also any available and commercial mean suitable for detecting the proteins encoded by the genes whose expression is the base of the method and kit of invention.
- measuring the gene expression levels is carried out using a microarray or a gene chip which comprises nucleic acid probes.
- Said nucleic acid probes comprise sequences that specifically hybridize to the transcripts of the set of genes defined above. At least one probe for each of the transcript must be on the microarray or the gene chip for detecting all the genes defined above, but it is possible to have more than one probe for the same transcript.
- hybridize to refers to the binding, duplexing, or hybridizing of a molecule substantially to or only to a particular nucleotide sequence or sequences under stringent conditions when that sequence is present in a complex mixture (e.g., total cellular DNA or RNA).
- Hybridization refers to the process in which two single- stranded polynucleotides bind non-'covalently to form a stable double-stranded polynucleotide.
- the step of measuring expression levels of the indicated sets of genes is always performed in vitro.
- Microarray technology measures mRNA levels of many genes simultaneously thereby presenting a powerful tool for identifying gene expression profiles for a disease or a specific state.
- Two microarray technologies are currently in wide use. The first are complementary DNA (cDNA) microarrays and the second are oligonucleotide microarrays. Although differences exist in the construction of these chips, essentially all downstream data analysis and output are the same.
- cDNA complementary DNA
- oligonucleotide microarrays oligonucleotide microarrays.
- a nucleic acid sample is prepared from appropriate source and labeled with a signal moiety, such as a fluorescent label.
- the sample is hybridized with the microarray under appropriate conditions.
- the microarrays are then washed or otherwise processed to remove non- hybridized sample nucleic acids.
- the hybridization is then evaluated by detecting the distribution of the label on the chip.
- the distribution of label may be detected by scanning the microarrays to determine fluorescence intensity distribution. Typically, the hybridization of each probe is reflected by corresponding pixel intensities. The signal intensity is proportional to the cDNA amount, and thus mRNA, expressed in the sample. Analysis of the differential expression levels is conducted by comparing such intensities for the test sample and for the control sample. A ratio of these intensities indicates the fold-change in gene expression between the test and control samples.
- the microarray is a cDNA microarray.
- probes of cDNA (-500-5000 bases long) are immobilized to a solid surface, e.g., glass, using robot spotting and exposed to a set of targets either separately or in a mixture.
- This method traditionally called DNA microarray, was developed at Stanford University.
- the microarray is an oligonucleotide microarray.
- oligonucleotides ⁇ 20-80-mer
- PNA peptide nucleic acid
- the microarray is exposed to labeled sample DNA, hybridized, and the identity/abundance of complementary sequences is determined.
- This method historically called DNA chip, was developed by Affymetrix, Inc., which sells its photolithographically fabricated products under the GeneChip® trademark. Many companies are manufacturing oligonucleotide based chips using alternative in-situ synthesis or depositioning technologies.
- the microarray can assume a variety of formats, e.g., libraries of soluble molecules; and libraries of compounds tethered to resin beads, silica chips, on glass or other solid supports.
- a number of different microarray configurations, supports and production methods are known to those skilled in the art.
- Probes may be prepared by any method known in the art, including synthetically or grown in a biological host. Synthetic methods include but are not limited to oligonucleotide synthesis, riboprobes, and polymerase chain reaction (PCR).
- the probes may be labeled with a detectable marker by any method known in the art. Methods for labeling probes include random priming, end labeling and PCR and nick translation.
- microarrays used for performing the methods according to the invention are specifically designed for this purpose, so that they comprise mainly probes that specifically hybridize with the selected set of genes.
- microarrays may comprise probes specific for other genes (in particular control probes, see below), they preferably comprise probes specific for no more than 500 distinct genes, more preferably no more than 400, 300, 250, 200, 150, 100, even more preferably no more than 90, 80, 70, 60, 50, 45, 40, 35, 30, 25, 20, 10 or even 7 distinct genes or even 6 distinct genes, or even 2 distinct genes among which are the selected set of genes.
- the microarray or the gene chip further comprises one or more internal control probes that act for example, as normalization control probes, expression level control probes and mismatch control probes.
- Normalization controls provide a control for variations in hybridization conditions, label intensity, "reading" efficiency and other factors that may cause the signal of a perfect hybridization to vary between microarrays.
- Expression level controls are probes that hybridize specifically with constitutively expressed genes in the analyzed sample ("housekeeping genes").
- Mismatch controls are oligonucleotide probes identical to their corresponding test or control probes except for the presence of one or more mismatched bases. Mismatch probes thus provide a control for non-specific binding or cross hybridization to a nucleic acid in the sample other than the target to which the probe is directed (false positives).
- measuring the gene expression levels of the genes is carried out by reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR), competitive RT-PCR, real time RT-PCR, differential display RT-PCR, Northern Blot analysis and other related tests.
- measuring the gene expression levels is carried out by quantitative reverse transcription PCR of RNA extracted from the sample.
- the RT-PCR comprises one or more internal control reagents. Another option is to conduct these techniques of gene expression quantification using PCR reactions, to amplify cDNA or cRNA produced from mRNA and analyze it via microarray.
- measuring the gene expression levels of the genes is carried out using isothermal amplification.
- the expression "isotherm amplification” covers any DNA amplification technology which does not resort to thermal cycling.
- isotherm amplification technologies include NASBA (nucleic acid sequence-based amplification, see 27), 3SR (self- sustained sequence replication, see 28), and LAMP (loop-mediated isothermal amplification, see 29).
- 3SR and NASBA eliminate heat denaturation by using a set of transcription and reverse transcription reactions to amplify the target sequence.
- NASBA is a primer- dependent technology that can be used for the continuous amplification of nucleic acids in a single mixture at one temperature.
- a target nucleic acid sequence can be replicated (amplified) exponentially in vitro under isothermal conditions by using three enzymatic activities essential to retroviral replication: reverse transcriptase, RNase H, and a DNA-dependent RNA polymerase.
- reverse transcriptase reverse transcriptase
- RNase H reverse transcriptase
- a DNA-dependent RNA polymerase a DNA-dependent RNA polymerase
- LAMP technology employs a DNA polymerase and a set of four specially designed primers that recognize a total of six distinct sequences on the target DNA.
- An inner primer containing sequences of the sense and antisense strands of the target DNA initiates LAMP.
- the following strand displacement DNA synthesis primed by an outer primer releases a single-stranded DNA.
- This serves as template for DNA synthesis primed by the second inner and outer primers that hybridize to the other end of the target, which produces a stem-loop DNA structure.
- one inner primer hybridizes to the loop on the product and initiates displacement DNA synthesis, yielding the original stem-loop DNA and a new stem-loop DNA with a stem twice as long.
- the cycling reaction continues with accumulation of 10 9 copies of target in less than an hour.
- the final products are stem-loop DNAs with several inverted repeats of the target and cauliflower- like structures with multiple loops formed by annealing between alternately inverted repeats of the target in the same strand (29).
- measuring the gene expression levels is carried out by detecting protein encoded by each of the genes with antibodies specific to the proteins or by a proteins chip.
- a protein chip or a protein microarray can assume a variety of formats, but commonly consists of a solid surface onto which enzymes, receptor proteins, antibodies or small molecules are immobilized and used as probes to detect proteins contained in the target sample.
- measuring the gene expression levels is carried out by HPLC. Gene expression can also be detected by measuring a characteristic of the gene that affects transcriptional activity of the gene, such as DNA amplification, methylation, mutation and allelic variation. Such methods are known to those skilled in the art.
- kits for conducting the assays described above are kits for conducting the assays described above. Since kits are based on the selection of a set of genes comprising the ones described above, kits are simpler and cheaper than others based on a large amount of genes, such as many commercial microarrays with thousands of probes.
- an aspect of the invention refers to the use of a kit for performing the method as defined above, comprising (i) means for measuring the gene expression levels of the selected genes; and (ii) instructions for correlating the gene expression levels above or below predetermined cut-off levels indicative of the tolerant state in liver transplantation.
- the means for measuring the gene expression levels of the selected genes may in some cases permit to measure the expression of additional genes.
- said means preferably permit to measure the expression of no more than 500 distinct genes, more preferably no more than 400, 300, 250, 200, 150, 100, even more preferably no more than 90, 80, 70, 60, 50, 45, 40, 35, 30, 25, 20, 10 or even 7 distinct genes, or even 6 distinct genes or even 2 distinct genes among which are the selected set of genes.
- the means comprise a microarray or a gene chip which comprises nucleic acid probes, said nucleic acid probes comprising sequences that specifically hybridize to the transcripts of the set of genes defined above.
- such a microarray preferably comprises nucleic acid probes specific for no more than 500 distinct genes, more preferably no more than 400, 300, 250, 200, 150, 100, even more preferably no more than 90, 80, 70, 60, 50, 45, 40, 35, 30, 25, 20, 10 or even 7 distinct genes, or even 6 distinct genes or even 2 distinct genes among which are the selected set of genes.
- the kit further comprises reagents for performing the microarray analysis.
- the means comprise oligonucleotide primers for performing a quantitative reverse transcription PCR, said primers comprising sequences that specifically hybridize to the complementary DNA derived from the transcripts of the set of genes defined above.
- the kit preferably comprises primers with sequences that specifically hybridize to no more than 500 distinct genes, more preferably no more than 400, 300, 250, 200, 150, 100, even more preferably no more than 90, 80, 70, 60, 50, 45, 40, 35, 30, 25, 20, 10 or even 7 distinct genes, or even 6 distinct genes or even 2 distinct genes, among which are the selected set of genes.
- Each such kit would preferably include instructions as well as the reagents typical for the type of assay described. These can include, for example, nucleic acid arrays (e.g. cDNA or oligonucleotide microarrays), as described above, configured to discern the gene expression profile of the invention.
- reagents used to conduct nucleic acid amplification and detection including, for example, reverse transcriptase, reverse transcriptase primer, a corresponding PCR primer set, a thermostable DNA polymerase, such as Taq polymerase, and a suitable detection reagent(s), such as, among others, fluorescent probes or dyes that bind to double- strand DNA such as ethidium bromide or SYBRgreen.
- Antibody based kits will contain buffers, secondary antibodies, detection enzymes and substrate, e.g. Horse Radish Peroxidase or biotin-avidin based reagents.
- kits for performing the method as defined above, comprising a solid support and displayed thereon nucleic acid probes which comprises sequences that specifically hybridize to the transcripts of the set of genes defined above.
- said microarray preferably comprises nucleic acid probes specific for no more than 500 distinct genes, more preferably no more than 400, 300, 250, 200, 150, 100, even more preferably no more than 90, 80, 70, 60, 50, 45, 40, 35, 30, 25, 20, 10 or even 7 distinct genes, or even 6 distinct genes or even 2 distinct genes among which are the selected set of genes.
- Computer software products of the invention typically include computer readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing the logic steps of the method of the invention.
- the present invention may also make use of various computer program products and software for a variety of purposes, such as probe design, management of data, analysis, and instrument operation.
- One important aspect of the invention is to carry out the method of the invention in the particular blood cell subtype V51TCR+, which is mostly present among the tolerant group of patients in opposition to cell subtype V52TCR+, which is the one more common in the non-tolerant group.
- another aspect of the invention refers to a method for selecting or modifying a treatment protocol, either before or after liver transplantation is performed, comprising the use of the method of assessing diagnosis and/or prognosis as defined above.
- the invention permits to identify those patients that will eventually develop tolerance and therefore, can benefit from less aggressive immunosuppression strategies. If liver transplantation has already been done, the invention permits to adequate therapy to the patient status. Patient's therapy can be altered as with additional therapeutics, with changes to the dosage or to the frequency, or with elimination of the current treatment. Such analysis permits intervention and therapy adjustment prior to detectable clinical indicia or in the face of otherwise ambiguous clinical indicia.
- the method according to the invention is for modifying a treatment protocol, after liver transplantation has been performed.
- the invention concerns a method for selecting a treatment protocol for a patient before liver transplantation is performed, comprising: a) prognosing the tolerant or non-tolerant state of said patient using the method according to the invention as described above, and b) if said patient is prognosed as tolerant, then selecting a less aggressive immunosuppressive treatment compared to standard immunosuppressive protocols, otherwise, selecting a standard immunosuppressive protocol.
- the invention concerns a method for modifying a treatment protocol for a patient after liver transplantation has been performed, comprising: c) diagnosing the tolerant or non-tolerant state of said patient using the method according to the invention as described above, and d) if said patient is diagnosed as tolerant, then decreasing the treatment dosage or frequency, replacing the treatment by a less aggressive drug, or even stopping the treatment, otherwise, maintaining the treatment or adding a new immunosuppressive treatment.
- genes sets described in the application for use in diagnosis or prognosis of a tolerant state in a liver-transplanted patient are particularly sensitive and specific, acceptable set of genes might be obtained by a minor modification.
- the addition of a few additional genes (1 to 3) or the replacement of one or more genes by other genes may result in acceptable sets of genes.
- FIG. 1 Process outline. Peripheral blood samples were obtained from a total of 80 liver transplant recipients and 16 healthy individuals. Samples from operationally tolerant (TOL) and non-tolerant (Non-TOL) recipients were separated into a training set (38 samples) and a test set (23 samples). Differential microarray gene expression between TOL and Non-TOL samples in the training set was first estimated employing SAM. This was followed by a search to identify genetic classifiers for prediction employing PAM, which resulted in a 26-probe signature (corresponding to 23 distinct genes). The PAM-derived signature was then employed to estimate the prevalence of tolerance among a cohort of 19 STA recipients.
- SAM operationally tolerant
- Non-TOL non-tolerant
- Figure 2 Differential gene expression between TOL and Non-TOL samples.
- Figure 3 Estimation of potentially tolerant individuals among stable liver recipients under maintenance immunosuppressive drugs.
- STA recipients classified as tolerant STA-Affy TOL
- Figure 4 qPCR validation of selected microarray gene expression measurements.
- the checkerboard plot on the left represents the statistical significance of TOL vs Non-TOL and TOL vs CONT comparisons, with black squares corresponding to P-value ⁇ 0.05 by t-test.
- FIG. 5 Impact of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and PBMC subsets on global gene expression measurements.
- Figure 6 Differences in protein expression in peripheral mononuclear between TOL, Non-TOL and CONT recipients.
- MFI mean fluorescence intensity
- Peripheral blood samples were collected from a cohort of 28 operationally tolerant liver transplant recipients (TOL) and 33 liver recipients in whom drug weaning was attempted but led to acute rejection requiring reintroduction of immunosuppressive drugs (non-tolerant, Non-TOL).
- TOL recipients had been intentionally weaned from immunosuppressive therapy under medical supervision. Criteria employed to select patients for immunosuppression weaning in the participating institutions were the following: a) >3 years after transplantation; single drug immunosuppression; b) absence of acute rejection episodes in the previous 12 months; absence of signs of acute/chronic rejection in liver histology; and c) absence of autoimmune liver disease before or after transplantation.
- PBMCs obtained from 21 Non-TOL, 17 TOL and 19 STA recipients.
- PBMCs were isolated employing a Ficoll-Hypaque layer
- Microarray data from 57 samples (21 Non-TOL, 17 TOL and 19 STA) were normalised using the GC content adjusted-robust multi-array (GC-RMA) algorithm, which computes expression values from probe intensity values incorporating probe sequence information (10).
- GC-RMA GC content adjusted-robust multi-array
- SAM Significant Analysis of Microarray
- This method incorporates an internal cross- validation step during feature selection in which the model is fit on 90% of the samples and then the class of the remaining 10% is predicted. This procedure is repeated 10 times to compute the overall error (ten- fold cross-validation).
- the PAM classifier was then used on the 38-sample set to perform multidimensional scaling analysis on the basis of between-sample Euclidean distances as implemented by the isoMDS function in R. This method is capable of visualizing high dimensional data (such as multiple expression measurements) in a three dimensional graph in which the distances between samples are kept as unchanged as possible. Finally, the PAM classifier was employed to predict class in the set of 19 samples obtained from STA patients.
- the Globaltest algorithm (14) from the Bioconductor package (www.bioconductor.org) was employed to test if potentially confounding clinical variables such as patient age, gender, time from transplantation, hepatitis C virus (HCV) status, immunosuppressive therapy (tacrolimus, cyclosporine A or mycophenolate mophetil) and peripheral blood monocyte, lymphocyte, and neutrophil counts could be influencing gene expression levels.
- HCV hepatitis C virus
- immunosuppressive therapy tacrolimus, cyclosporine A or mycophenolate mophetil
- peripheral blood monocyte, lymphocyte, and neutrophil counts could be influencing gene expression levels.
- the same strategy was employed to estimate the correlation between microarray expression data and the proportion of peripheral blood CD4+CD25+, CD4+Foxp3+, CD4+, CD8+, CD 19+, NKT, total ⁇ TCR+, V51TCR+ and V52TCR+ T cells.
- Globaltest is a method to determine if the expression pattern of a pre-specified group of genes is related to a clinical variable, which can be either a discrete variable or a continuous measurement. This test is based on an empirical Bayesian generalized linear model, where the regression coefficients between gene expression data and clinical measurements are random variables. A goodness of fit test is applied on the basis of this model. The Globaltest method computes a statistic Q and a P-value to measure the influence of our group of genes on the clinical variable measured. For each probe, the influence (Q) in predicting measured clinical variable is estimated against the expected value, and ranked among the probes under study. The weight of each probe is also assessed by the z-score considering the standard deviation of each probe in all samples used in the analysis. Example 6. Quantitative real-time PCR experiments
- oligonucleotide microarray experiments were conducted on PBMCs obtained from 17 TOL and 21 Non-TOL recipients (Table 1 and Figure 1).
- Table 1 Demographic characteristics of patient groups.
- Non-TOL 21 52 9 45 9qo/ 48% CsA 38% FK R ⁇ M ,
- CsA cyclosporine A
- FK tacrolimus
- MMF mycophenolate mophetil
- SRL sirolimus (all patients were receiving immunosuppressive drugs in monotherapy).
- SAM Significant Analysis of Microarrays
- Microarrays (PAM) analysis was performed in parallel on the same two groups of samples resulting in the identification of a subset of 26 probes, corresponding to 23 genes (all of them present in the SAM list; Figure 2b), capable of correctly classifying tolerant recipients with an overall error rate of 0.026, (sensitivity 1, specificity 0.944).
- Multidimensional scaling analysis was then performed to visually represent the proximity between TOL and Non-TOL samples according to the expression of the 26 probes. As depicted in Figure 2c, TOL and Non-TOL samples appeared as two clearly separated groups. Overall, analysis of microarray-derived expression data results in the identification of a genetic classifier that exhibits high accuracy at discriminating
- Selected target genes for qPCR experiments included the 23 genes selected by PAM, 44 genes selected among those most highly ranked in the SAM-derived gene list, and 6 genes
- qPCR expression results confirm the validity of most genes identified by microarrays and reveal that tolerance-related expression patterns differ from both Non-TOL recipients and non-transplanted healthy individuals, albeit TOL recipients appear to be closer to healthy individuals than to Non-TOL recipients.
- MiPP Misclassified Penalized Posterior
- ER overall error rate
- MiPP misclassified posterior probability
- LDA Lineal discriminant analysis
- QDA quadratic discriminant analysis
- SVM-rbf supervector machine with radial basis function
- SVM-lin supervector machine with lineal function as kernel.
- HCV infection in contrast, had a major impact both on global gene expression patterns and on the tolerance- related expression signatures (P -value ⁇ 0.0003 and 0.0033 for the 26-and the 2462- probe sets, respectively).
- HCV-pos chronically infected patients
- HCV-neg non-infected recipients employing SAM. This resulted in the identification of 4725 differentially expressed probes (FDR ⁇ 5%; data not shown). Further, we used SAM to compare TOL and NonTOL samples stratified on the basis of HCV infection status.
- HCV-neg TOL and Non-TOL individuals differed in 117 probes, while 528 probes were differentially expressed between HCV-pos TOL and Non-TOL recipients (FDR ⁇ 5%; Figure 5a).
- HCV infection was also found to influence the expression of 12 out of the 26 probes included in the PAM-derived microarray genetic classifier, albeit correlation was tighter with tolerance than with HCV infection ( Figure 5b). This is concordant with our finding that the 26 probe set classifies TOL and Non-TOL samples regardless of HCV infection status ( Figure 5c).
- HCV infection has a major influence on peripheral blood gene expression following liver transplantation, this does not prevent accurate discrimination between TOL and Non-TOL recipients.
- TOL and Non-TOL recipients incorporated in our current microarray study.
- TOL recipients exhibited an increased number of CD4+CD25+Foxp3+, ⁇ TCR+ and
- NK, V51TCR+ and total ⁇ TCR+ T cells influenced 314, 296 and 438 probes, respectively, although statistical significance was only reached for NK (P -value ⁇ 0.0032) and ⁇ TCR+ T cells (P -value ⁇ 0.0271).
- a similar analysis was then conducted on the 4725-probe list differentiating HCV-pos from HCV-neg samples. This analysis identified CD8+ T cells as the lymphocyte subset influencing the greatest number of genes, although this did not reach statistical significance (328 probes, P ⁇ 0.14).
- NK, ⁇ TCR+ and V51TCR+ peripheral blood lymphocyte proportions also correlated with the expression of multiple individual genes included in the PAM-derived 26-probe set (Figure 5c), although only ⁇ TCR+ T cell frequency was shown to be significantly associated with the 26-probe set as a whole (P -value ⁇ 0.0154).
- the results of these analyses indicate that both NK and ⁇ TCR+ T cells influence tolerance-associated peripheral blood expression patterns. Considering that TOL and Non-TOL recipients differ in the number of peripheral blood ⁇ TCR+ T cells (3), it is clear that tolerance-related differential gene expression can be attributed, at least in part, to an increased number of ⁇ TCR+ T cells in TOL recipients.
- NK cells which are present in similar numbers in TOL and Non-TOL recipients
- These proteins were mainly expressed on NK, NKT and ⁇ TCR+ T cells, with significant differences being noted between TOL, Non-TOL and CONT individuals ( Figure 6 a and b).
- CD 160 fluorescent monoclonal antibodies were purchased from Beckman Coulter, SLAMF7 and KLRFl from R&D Systems. All remaining antibodies were purchased from BD Bio sciences.
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