The role of junctional adhesion molecule in homing and maintenance of hematopoietic stem cells in adult Egyptian patients underwent allogenic bone marrow transplantation

Background
Junctional adhesion molecule-A (JAM-A/JAM-1/F11R) is a cell adhesion molecule expressed in epithelial and endothelial cells, also hematopoietic cells, and JAM-A promotes hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell adhesion to bone marrow (BM) endothelial niche cells. We propose that JAM family members provide additional important markers for hematopoietic stem cell discrimination and are critical for BM engraftment


Patients and methods
The type of study was a prospective cohort study. A study was conducted on patients admitted in BM transplantation unit, Ain Shams University Hospitals. The study started in September 2020 and ended in September 2022. The study included 30 patients who underwent allogenic BM transplantation.


Results
Our results showed that on comparison between engrafted patients and nonengrafted patients after allogenic BM transplantation, there was a highly statistically significant (P=<0.001) regarding leukocytic count, absolute neutrophil count, hemoglobin level (Hb), platlet count. Regarding JAM-A positivity, there was a highly significant difference between the two studied groups (P= <0.001). Regarding cytomegalovirus (CMV) in JAM-A +ve population, there was a significant difference between the two studied groups (P= 0.016). Regarding CMV in JAMA –ve population, there was no statistical significant difference between the two studied groups (P= 0.371).


Conclusion
We found that the JAM-A have significant function in homing and maintenance of hematopoietic stem cells in post-transplant patient. The current study showed that there was significant positive correlation between engraftment with JAM-A, leukocytic count, neutrophil count, platlet, hemoglobin, and CMV.