JAK2V617F drives gut microbiota differences in patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms

Abstract

Background: Essential thrombocythemia (ET), polycythemia vera (PV), and primary myelofibrosis (MF) are myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN). Inflammation is involved in the initiation, progression, and symptomology of the diseases. The gut microbiota impacts the immune system, infection control, and steady-state hematopoiesis. Methods: We analyzed the gut microbiota of 227 MPN patients and healthy controls (HCs) using next-generation sequencing. We expanded our previous results in PV and ET patients with additional PV, pre-MF, and MF patients which allowed us to compare MPN patients collectively, MPN sub-diagnoses, and MPN mutations (separately and combined) vs. HCs (N = 42) and compare within MPN sub-diagnoses and MPN mutation. Results: MPN patients had a higher observed richness (median, 245 [range, 49–659]) compared with HCs (191.5 [range, 111–300; p =.003]) and a lower relative abundance of taxa within the Firmicutes phylum; for example, Faecalibacterium (6% vs. 14%, p