Studying Antigen Escape In B-ALL Using The BD Rhapsody™ System

Predicting patient outcomes in CAR-T cell therapy remains a critical challenge, especially when relapse risk drives unnecessary marrow transplants. Recent research explored whether pre-treatment tumor cell profiles could reveal markers of response or relapse. Using single-cell RNA sequencing combined with antibody-based analysis, investigators identified a key mechanism: tumor cells with low Ikaros protein levels exhibit greater lineage plasticity, enabling antigen escape under CD19 or CD22-targeted therapies. This discovery not only highlights a potential biomarker for relapse prediction but also underscores the value of integrated transcriptomic and proteomic approaches. The findings may have broad implications across pediatric leukemia, lymphoma, and CLL, offering new strategies for patient stratification and therapy optimization.

Learn how advanced multi-omic platforms powered this breakthrough and what it means for future cell and gene therapy research.