Recipient and donor JAK2 46/1 haplotypes are associated with acute graft-versus-host disease following allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation

Abstract

Several genetic polymorphisms have been implicated to affect the outcome of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT). The role of cytokines in acute graft-versus-host disease (aGvHD) is well established and many of the involved cytokines signal through the Janus kinase (JAK) pathways. In this study, we assessed the association of recipient and donor JAK2 46/1 haplotypes and allo-HSCT outcome in a cohort of 124 acute myeloid leukemia patients. Both, recipient and donor 46/1 haplotypes significantly affected aGvHD grades II–IV development (p = 0.006 and p = 0.031, respectively), furthermore the influence of the haplotypes seemed to be additive. In multivariate analyses the recipient haplotype remained independently related (p = 0.012) to aGvHD, while the donor not (p = 0.08). We observed significantly less relapses among haplotype carriers (p = 0.004), but overall survival did not differ (p = 0.732). Our findings suggest that recipient and donor JAK2 46/1 haplotypes might be involved in the regulation of aGvHD.

Keywords:

• Acute graft-versus-host disease
• acute myeloid leukemia
• allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation
• JAK2 46/1 haplotype

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Csehne Banhidi Klara, Haluska Brigitta, Mezibroczky Martina, and Petro Peterne for their technical assistance and Tatai Gabor for data management.

Potential conflict of interest

Disclosure forms provided by the authors are available with the full text of this article at http://www.w3.org/10.1080/10428194.2016.1198956.

Funding information

This work was supported by grants from the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund [grant number OTKA K104903].