Immunophenotyping of Paired Bone Marrow and Peripheral Blood: Implications for Monitoring Plasma Cell Disorders
5 affiliations
- 1Department of Cancer Prevention and Control, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Elm & Carlton Streets, Buffalo, NY 14263, USA
- 2Flow Cytometry Laboratory (Clinical), Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Buffalo, NY 14263, USA
- 3Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Buffalo, NY 14263, USA
- 4Department of Medicine, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Buffalo, NY 14263, USA
- 5Department of Cell Stress Biology, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Buffalo, NY 14263, USA
Abstract
Background: Although peripheral blood (PB) immunophenotyping is used to monitor immune reconstitution after transplant, there is almost no understanding of how closely the PB is correlated with the bone marrow (BM)—the tumor immune microenvironment (TIME)—in plasma cell disorders (PCD). The invasiveness of BM biopsies and spatial heterogeneity of cancer infiltration limit their use. Methods: To address this gap in knowledge, paired pre-treatment PB and BM aspirate (BMA) samples from 60 patients with PCDs were immunophenotyped with multicolor flow cytometry. Thirty lymphocyte populations and 11 ratios were quantified for each compartment. Abundance was expressed as median and BMA-PB correlation as Spearman’s correlation (ρ). Results: The largest differences in abundance are in CD8+ T cells: effector memory (+26% in BMA); and cells co-expressing ≥ 2 exhaustion-associated markers (+33% in BMA). Despite differential abundance, the BMA and PB of all markers are significantly correlated, with almost all having very strong or strong correlations, the strongest being the cytotoxic populations gamma-delta T cells (ρ = 0.95), CD8+ T cells (ρ = 0.96), and CD57+ NKT (ρ = 0.97). Exploratory stratified analyses revealed that most correlations remained strong even in subgroups defined by age, sex, obesity, symptom burden, purity of BMA sample, and days between PB and BMA sample. An illustrative single-patient exploratory analysis reveals that the focal lesion immune composition is closer to the PB than BMA. Conclusions: This study suggests that the PB provides insight into the PCD TIME, and further evaluation of PB immunophenotyping as a less-invasive approach for estimating selected BMA immune populations is warranted.
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BibTeX
@article{joseph2026immunophenotyping,
title = {{Immunophenotyping of Paired Bone Marrow and Peripheral Blood: Implications for Monitoring Plasma Cell Disorders}},
author = {Janine M. Joseph and Joseph D. Tario and Han Yu and Sarah Parker and Ian Lund and Kristina Slemmer and Megan E. Schaefer and Kimberly L. Celotto and Hamza Hassan and Philip L. McCarthy and Hemn Mohammadpour and Rikki Cannioto and Jens Hillengass},
journal = {Cancers},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.3390/cancers18213428},
url = {https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6694/18/21/3428},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Immunophenotyping of Paired Bone Marrow and Peripheral Blood: Implications for Monitoring Plasma Cell Disorders
AU - Janine M. Joseph
AU - Joseph D. Tario
AU - Han Yu
AU - Sarah Parker
AU - Ian Lund
AU - Kristina Slemmer
AU - Megan E. Schaefer
AU - Kimberly L. Celotto
AU - Hamza Hassan
AU - Philip L. McCarthy
AU - Hemn Mohammadpour
AU - Rikki Cannioto
AU - Jens Hillengass
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/23
JO - Cancers
DO - 10.3390/cancers18213428
UR - https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6694/18/21/3428
AB - Background: Although peripheral blood (PB) immunophenotyping is used to monitor immune reconstitution after transplant, there is almost no understanding of how closely the PB is correlated with the bone marrow (BM)—the tumor immune microenvironment (TIME)—in plasma cell disorders (PCD). The invasiveness of BM biopsies and spatial heterogeneity of cancer infiltration limit their use. Methods: To address this gap in knowledge, paired pre-treatment PB and BM aspirate (BMA) samples from 60 patients with PCDs were immunophenotyped with multicolor flow cytometry. Thirty lymphocyte populations and 11 ratios were quantified for each compartment. Abundance was expressed as median and BMA-PB correlation as Spearman’s correlation (ρ). Results: The largest differences in abundance are in CD8+ T cells: effector memory (+26% in BMA); and cells co-expressing ≥ 2 exhaustion-associated markers (+33% in BMA). Despite differential abundance, the BMA and PB of all markers are significantly correlated, with almost all having very strong or strong correlations, the strongest being the cytotoxic populations gamma-delta T cells (ρ = 0.95), CD8+ T cells (ρ = 0.96), and CD57+ NKT (ρ = 0.97). Exploratory stratified analyses revealed that most correlations remained strong even in subgroups defined by age, sex, obesity, symptom burden, purity of BMA sample, and days between PB and BMA sample. An illustrative single-patient exploratory analysis reveals that the focal lesion immune composition is closer to the PB than BMA. Conclusions: This study suggests that the PB provides insight into the PCD TIME, and further evaluation of PB immunophenotyping as a less-invasive approach for estimating selected BMA immune populations is warranted.
SN - 2072-6694
ER -