Elevated erythroferrone distinguishes erythrocytosis with inherited defects in oxygen‐sensing pathway from primary familial and congenital polycythaemia

Abstract

Congenital erythrocytoses represent a heterogenous group of rare defects of erythropoiesis characterized by elevated erythrocyte mass. We performed molecular‐genetic analysis of 21 Czech patients with congenital erythrocytosis and assessed the mutual link between chronic erythrocyte overproduction and iron homoeostasis. Causative mutations in erythropoietin receptor (EPOR), hypoxia‐inducible factor 2 alpha (HIF2A) or Von Hippel–Lindau (VHL) genes were detected in nine patients, including a novel p.A421Cfs*4 EPOR and a homozygous intronic c.340+770T>C VHL mutation. The association and possible cooperation of five identified missense germline EPOR or Janus kinase 2 (JAK2) variants with other genetic/non‐genetic factors in erythrocytosis manifestation may involve variants of Piezo‐type mechanosensitive ion channel component 1 (PIEZO1) or Ten‐eleven translocation 2 (TET2), but this requires further research. In two families, hepcidin levels appeared to prevent or promote phenotypic expression of the disease. No major contribution of heterozygous haemochromatosis gene (HFE) mutations to the erythrocytic phenotype or hepcidin levels was observed in our cohort. VHL‐ and HIF2A‐mutant erythrocytosis showed increased erythroferrone and suppressed hepcidin, whereas no overproduction of erythroferrone was detected in other patients regardless of molecular defect, age or therapy. Understanding the interplay between iron metabolism and erythropoiesis in different subgroups of congenital erythrocytosis may improve current treatment options.

Mechanotransductive receptor Piezo1 as a promising target in the treatment of fibrosis diseases

“…For example, it regulates stem cell fate determination (Sugimoto et al, 2017;Qiu et al, 2023), cell proliferation and differentiation (He et al, 2018), skeletal muscle development and repair (Bernareggi et al, 2022), vascular endothelial cell permeability (Friedrich et al, 2019), and tumor cell invasion and metastasis (Jiang et al, 2022). It has also been found that Piezo1 mutations are also associated with several diseases, such as congenital erythrocytosis (Knight et al, 2019;Filser et al, 2021;Sochorcova et al, 2023) and familial pulmonary hypertension (Wang Z. et al, 2021;Liao et al, 2021;Porto Ribeiro et al, 2022). Currently, there are also a large number of studies that have identified a potential relationship between Piezo1 and fibrotic diseases (Zhang et al, 2021a;Braidotti et al, 2022a;He et al, 2022a;Swain et al, 2022).…”