IGHV gene rearrangements as outcome predictors for CLL patients: experience of Ukrainian group

Important characteristics of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) cells are biased immunoglobulin variable heavy chain (IGHV) gene repertoire and expression of stereotyped B-cell receptors (BCRs); however, their prognostic value (in contrast to the impact of IGHV gene mutational status) is less clear. To evaluate the impact of separate IGHV gene usage and expression of stereotyped BCRs in CLL prognosis. Clinical data and IGHV gene configuration were analysed in 319 consecutive patients with CLL. We found that the majority of clinical parameters of patients were defined by IGHV mutational status. Our data also provided new evidence supporting the prognostic relevance of separate IGHV genes or stereotyped BCR in CLL, namely: (a) a restricted non-mutated (UM) IGHV gene repertoire in CLL patients with autoimmune haemolytic anaemia (AIHA) (more frequent expression of UM IGHV1-69, IGHV3-11 and IGHV4-59 genes, P = 0.001), a shorter period of AIHA development for expressors of these genes (P = 0.001) and a tendency towards expression of a stereotypic HCDR3 (P = 0.029), (b) a high incidence of second solid tumour development in IGHV3-21-expressing patients (P = 0.005) and (c) differences in overall survival (OS) of UM CLL patients depending on the BCR structure. Further research of specific IGHV gene usage and subsets of stereotyped BCRs in CLL may be helpful in more precise prediction of CLL prognosis in individual patients.