Abstract
Microbial translocation (MT) and altered gut microbiota have been described in acute leukemic patients and contribute to immune activation and inflammation. However, phage translocation has not been investigated in leukemia patients yet. We recruited 44 leukemic patients and 52 healthy adults and quantified the levels of 3 phages in peripheral blood, which were the most positive phages screened from fecal samples. The content of 16S rRNA in plasma was detected by qPCR to assess the intestinal mucosa of these patients. Spearman’s rank correlation was used to analyze the relationship between phage load and the relevant clinical data. We found the most prevalent phages in fecal samples were λ phage, Wphi phage, and P22 phage, and λ phage had the highest detection rate in plasma (68%). Phage content was affected by chemotherapy and course of disease and correlated with the levels of CRP (r = 0.43, p = 0.003), sCD14 (r = 0.37, p = 0.014), and sCD163 (r = 0.44, p = 0.003). Our data indicate that plasma phage load is a promising marker for gut barrier damage and that gut phage translocation correlates with monocyte/macrophage activation and systemic inflammatory response in leukemic patients.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the Second Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University for providing the specimens of leukemia patients and healthy controls.
Funding
This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province, China under Grant No. LY18H200006; Science and Technology Planning Project of Zhejiang Province, China under Grant No. 2018C37067; and Science and Technology Planning Project of Wenzhou, Zhejiang, China under Grant No. Y20180108. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
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XY, PL and XX carried out the experiments. XY, PL, KH and QW analyzed and discussed the data. XY, XX and YX searched the related literature and prepared the manuscript. XY wrote the manuscript; XY, ML and XZ edited the manuscript. QY and XZ conceived the study, ML and PL designed the study.
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Yin, Xr., Liu, P., Xu, X. et al. Elevated plasma phage load as a marker for intestinal permeability in leukemic patients. Med Microbiol Immunol 209, 693–703 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00430-020-00694-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00430-020-00694-y