Multiomic single cell sequencing identifies stemlike nature of mixed phenotype acute leukemia

Abstract

Despite recent work linking mixed phenotype acute leukemia (MPAL) to certain genetic lesions, specific driver mutations remain undefined for a significant proportion of patients and no genetic subtype is predictive of clinical outcomes. Moreover, therapeutic strategy for MPAL remains unclear, and prognosis is overall poor. We performed multiomic single cell profiling of 14 newly diagnosed adult MPAL patients to characterize the inter- and intra-tumoral transcriptional, immunophenotypic, and genetic landscapes of MPAL. We show that neither genetic profile nor transcriptome reliably correlate with specific MPAL immunophenotypes. Despite this, we find that MPAL blasts express a shared stem cell-like transcriptional profile indicative of high differentiation potential. Patients with the highest differentiation potential demonstrate inferior survival in our dataset. A gene set score, MPAL95, derived from genes highly enriched in the most stem-like MPAL cells, is applicable to bulk RNA sequencing data and is predictive of survival in an independent patient cohort, suggesting a potential strategy for clinical risk stratification.

The genetic characterisation of mixed phenotype acute leukemia (MPAL) remains limited. Here, single cell multi-omics analysis of 14 adult MPAL patients identifies a stem cell-like transcriptomic signature expressed by MPAL blasts that is indicative of high differentiation potential and gives rise to a gene set score MPAL95 that is predictive of survival.