Author Date

2021-3

Degree Name

Department

Plant and Wildlife Sciences

College

Life Sciences

Defense Date

2021-03-01

Publication Date

2021-03-16

First Faculty Advisor

Samuel H. Payne

First Faculty Reader

Ryan T. Kelly

Honors Coordinator

Craig Coleman

Keywords

proteomics, lymphocytes, mass spectrometry, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, time course modeling

Abstract

Time dependent change in lymphocytes provides a necessary background for monitoring the development of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia from asymptomatic to malignant. Several bulk proteomics studies characterize differences between tumor cells and healthy B cells, yet the transition to symptomatic disease is not well understood. This could be shown by a longitudinal study beginning with asymptomatic patients if the rare tumor cells in early stages can be isolated from small volume blood draws and effectively characterized with few cells, such as was done here using healthy B cells to provide a baseline for such studies to discriminate routine fluctuation from pathogenic changes. Lymphocyte proteomic data from two subjects and two collection days show that B lymphocytes change significantly with time. Most proteins were identified broadly in cell types, collection dates, and subjects. This study shows that the overall correlation between B lymphocytes from the same subject a month apart is nearly as low as the correlation between B and T lymphocytes, though time dependent changes to differentially expressed proteins are not as extreme as the differences between B and T cells. These results show that lymphocyte subtypes can be collected and monitored by global proteomics to identify change over time. This could allow characterization of circulating tumor cells from patients with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia to identify variability in each stage and differential expression as the disease progresses.