The Overall Analysis of JAK2 and MPL Mutation Status in Chinese MPD Patients by MassARRAY Assay

In recent three years the new notable progress associated with myeloproliferative disorder (MPD) was the identification of JAK2 and MPL mutations, which have been confirmed to be the major molecular mechanism and marker of BCR/ABL negative MPD. Multiple techniques including allele-specific PCR, conventional DNA sequencing, pyrosequencing as well as BsaXI restriction analysis have been used to detect these mutations. The previous data of Shanghai Group had demonstrated the sensitivity and preliminary result of JAK2 V617F in 162 Chinese patients with MPD using MassARRAY assay. To generally identify the frequency of these mutations in Chinese MPD patients, we continued to employ this technique-MassARRAY assay to detect JAK2 V617F, JAK2 K539L as well as MPL W515L mutation in a larger scale of Chinese MPD patients. A total of 204 Chinese MPD patients were enrolled in our study. These patients were referred to polycythemia vera (PV) (n=55), essential thrombocythemia (ET) (n=110), primary myelofibrosis (PMF) (n=29) and hypereosinophilic syndrome (HES) (n=10). 2 ml peripheral blood was obtained with informed consent and genomic DNA was isolated. The diagnosis of MPD was established according to the 2001 WHO diagnostic criteria. Finally, 187 patient samples with good signal can be analyzed for JAK2 V617F mutation. Among the available 101 signals of ET patients, 30 were heterozygous mutation and 9 were homozygous mutation. Among 52 PV patients, 25 were heterozygous mutation and 14 were homozygous mutation. Among 25 PMF patients, 9 were heterozygous mutation and 5 were homozygous mutation. None of HES patients was found harboring JAK2 V617F. In addition, we identified a PV patient harboring JAK2 K539L but not V617F mutation (1/52, 1.9%), and an ET patient harboring MPL W515L mutation (1/101, 1%). Both results were further confirmed by sequence analysis. Hence, we concluded that JAK2 V617F underlie the major molecular pathogenesis of Chinese MPD patients especially PV, however, JAK2 K539L and MPL W515L are rare events in these patients.