TY - JOUR
T1 - The Gut Microbiota in Patients with Polycythemia Vera is Distinct from that of Healthy Controls and Varies by Treatment
AU - Eickhardt-Dalbøge, Christina Schjellerup
AU - Ingham, Anna Cäcilia
AU - Andersen, Lee O'Brien
AU - Nielsen, Henrik V.
AU - Fuursted, Kurt
AU - Stensvold, Christen Rune
AU - Larsen, Morten Kranker
AU - Kjær, Lasse
AU - Christensen, Sarah Friis
AU - Knudsen, Trine Alma
AU - Skov, Vibe
AU - Ellervik, Christina
AU - Olsen, Lars Rønn
AU - Hasselbalch, Hans Carl
AU - Nielsen, Xiaohui Chen
AU - Christensen, Jens Jørgen Elmer
N1 - Copyright © 2022 American Society of Hematology.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Chronic inflammation is believed to play an important role in the development and disease progression of polycythemia vera (PV). Since an association between gut microbiota, hematopoiesis, and inflammation is well established we hypothesized that patients with PV have a gut microbiota distinct from healthy controls. Recombinant interferon-α2 (IFN) treatment of patients with PV has been shown to be disease-modifying in terms of normalization of elevated blood cell counts in concert with a reduction in the JAK2V617F allelic burden. Therefore, we hypothesized that patients treated with IFN might have a composition of the gut microbiota towards normalization. Herein, via amplicon-based next generation sequencing of the V3-V4 regions of the 16S rRNA gene, we report on an abnormal gut microbiota in 102 patients with PV as compared with 42 healthy controls (HCs). Patients with PV had a lower alpha diversity and a lower relative abundance of several taxa belonging to Firmicutes (45%) compared with HCs (59%, p<0.001). Furthermore, we report the composition of the gut microbiota to differ between the treatment groups (IFN, hydroxyurea, no treatment, combination therapy with IFN and ruxolitinib) and the HCs. The observations are highly interesting considering the potential pathogenetic importance of an altered gut microbiota for development of other diseases, including chronic inflammatory diseases. Our observations call for further gut microbiota studies to decipher potential causal associations between treatment and the gut microbiota in PV and related neoplasms.
AB - Chronic inflammation is believed to play an important role in the development and disease progression of polycythemia vera (PV). Since an association between gut microbiota, hematopoiesis, and inflammation is well established we hypothesized that patients with PV have a gut microbiota distinct from healthy controls. Recombinant interferon-α2 (IFN) treatment of patients with PV has been shown to be disease-modifying in terms of normalization of elevated blood cell counts in concert with a reduction in the JAK2V617F allelic burden. Therefore, we hypothesized that patients treated with IFN might have a composition of the gut microbiota towards normalization. Herein, via amplicon-based next generation sequencing of the V3-V4 regions of the 16S rRNA gene, we report on an abnormal gut microbiota in 102 patients with PV as compared with 42 healthy controls (HCs). Patients with PV had a lower alpha diversity and a lower relative abundance of several taxa belonging to Firmicutes (45%) compared with HCs (59%, p<0.001). Furthermore, we report the composition of the gut microbiota to differ between the treatment groups (IFN, hydroxyurea, no treatment, combination therapy with IFN and ruxolitinib) and the HCs. The observations are highly interesting considering the potential pathogenetic importance of an altered gut microbiota for development of other diseases, including chronic inflammatory diseases. Our observations call for further gut microbiota studies to decipher potential causal associations between treatment and the gut microbiota in PV and related neoplasms.
U2 - 10.1182/bloodadvances.2022008555
DO - 10.1182/bloodadvances.2022008555
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 36260736
JO - Blood advances
JF - Blood advances
SN - 2473-9529
ER -