In this study, we developed the world's first artificial intelligence (AI) system that assesses the dysplasia of blood cells on bone marrow smears and presents the result of AI prediction for one of the most representative dysplasia—decreased granules (DG). We photographed field images from the bone marrow smears from patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) or non-MDS diseases and cropped each cell using an originally developed cell detector. Two morphologists labelled each cell. The degree of dysplasia was evaluated on a four-point scale: 0–3 (e.g., neutrophil with severely decreased granules were labelled DG3). We then constructed the classifier from the dataset of labelled images. The detector and classifier were based on a deep neural network pre-trained with natural images. We obtained 1797 labelled images, and the morphologists determined 134 DGs (DG1: 46, DG2: 77, DG3: 11). Subsequently, we performed a five-fold cross-validation to evaluate the performance of the classifier. For DG1–3 labelled by morphologists, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), and accuracy were 91.0%, 97.7%, 76.3%, 99.3%, and 97.2%, respectively. When DG1 was excluded in the process, the sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV, and accuracy were 85.2%, 98.9%, 80.6%, and 99.2% and 98.2%, respectively.

No abstract

Endothelial dysfunction in the early phases of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) contributes to a common pathology between transplant-associated thrombotic microangiopathy (TA-TMA) and graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), which are serious complications of HSCT. Growth arrest-specific (Gas) 6 structurally belongs to the family of plasma vitamin K-dependent proteins working as a cofactor for activated protein C, and has growth factor-like properties through its interaction with receptor tyrosine kinases of the TAM family: Tyro3, Axl, and Mer. Serum Gas6 levels were significantly increased in HSCT patients with grade II to IV acute GVHD (aGVHD), and Gas6 and Mer expression levels were upregulated in aGVHD lesions of the large intestine and skin. The increased serum Gas6 levels were also correlated with elevated lactate dehydrogenase, d-dimer, and plasmin inhibitor complex values in HSCT patients with aGVHD. In human umbilical vein endothelial cells (ECs), exogenous Gas6 or the exposure of sera isolated from patients with grade III aGVHD to ECs induced the downregulation of thrombomodulin and the upregulation of PAI-1, as well as the upregulation of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 and vascular cell adhesion molecule-1, which were inhibited by UNC2250, a selective Mer tyrosine kinase inhibitor. In mouse HSCT models, we observed hepatic GVHD with hepatocellular apoptosis, necrosis, and fibrosis, as well as TA-TMA, which is characterized pathologically by thrombosis formation in the microvasculature of the liver and kidney. Of note, intravenous administration of UNC2250 markedly suppressed GVHD and TA-TMA in these mouse HSCT models. Our findings suggest that the Gas6-Mer axis is a promising target for TA-TMA after GVHD.

No abstract

No abstract