Glucocorticoids paradoxically facilitate steroid resistance in T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemias and thymocytes

Meyer LK, Huang BJ, Delgado-Martin C, Roy RP, Hechmer A, Wandler AM, Vincent TL, Fortina P, Olshen AB, Wood BL, Horton TM, Shannon KM, Teachey DT, Hermiston ML. Glucocorticoids paradoxically facilitate steroid resistance in T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemias and thymocytes. J Clin Invest. 2020 Feb 3;130(2):863-876. doi: 10.1172/JCI130189. PubMed PMID: 31687977; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6994137.

Glucocorticoids (GCs) are a central component of therapy for patients with T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL), and although resistance to GCs is a strong negative prognostic indicator in T-ALL, the mechanisms of GC resistance remain poorly understood. Using diagnostic samples from patients enrolled in the frontline Children’s Oncology Group (COG) T-ALL clinical trial AALL1231, we demonstrated that one-third of primary T-ALLs were resistant to GCs when cells were cultured in the presence of IL-7, a cytokine that is critical for normal T cell function and that plays a well-established role in leukemogenesis. We demonstrated that in these T-ALLs and in distinct populations of normal developing thymocytes, GCs paradoxically induced their own resistance by promoting upregulation of IL-7 receptor (IL-7R) expression. In the presence of IL-7, this augmented downstream signal transduction, resulting in increased STAT5 transcriptional output and upregulation of the prosurvival protein BCL-2. Taken together, we showed that IL-7 mediates an intrinsic and physiologic mechanism of GC resistance in normal thymocyte development that is retained during leukemogenesis in a subset of T-ALLs and is reversible with targeted inhibition of the IL-7R/JAK/STAT5/BCL-2 axis.