Transcriptome analysis of T-cell subsets before and under lenalidomide treatment sorted from the blood of 6 first-line follicular lymphoma (FL) patients

Purpose: the goal of this study is to analyze the effect of lenalidomide on CD4pos PD-1pos, CD4pos PD-1neg, CD8pos PD-1neg and CD8pos PD-1pos subsets Methods: genome-wide mRNA profiles of 6 first-line follicular lymphoma patients (GALEN protocol) were generated using deep sequencing before and after one-week lenalidomide, using Illumina HiSEq4000. All paired-end sequence reads passed quality filters.and were analyzed at the gene level with STAR followed by Featurecount. Results: Important differences in functional biological pathways related to proliferation, immune system, metabolism and immune synapse in PD-1pos T-cells triggered by lenalidomide were highlighted by the experiment. RNAseq was performed on paired samples collected at Day 0 and Day 7 (after one-week lenalidomide) from 6 FL patients. For each sample, T-cell subsets were FACSorted for CD3pos/CD4pos/PD-1neg, CD3pos/CD4pos/PD-1pos, CD3pos/CD8pos/PD-1neg, and CD3pos/CD8pos/PD-1pos populations. Day 0 populations were used as pairwise control.