MMF toxicity Raw sequence reads
Mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) has been widely prescribed for neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders (NMOSD) although some patients experience severe gastrointestinal (GI) side effects following MMF administration. Our study investigated the potential mechanisms of this toxicity in NMOSD patients.We constructed MMF-induced colitis mouse model and produced a multi-omic dataset in which microbiome and metabolome analysis from the mouse GI tract to decipher the mechanisms of MMF GI toxicity. Further, 17 female NMOSD patients treated with MMF were prospectively enrolled and grouped according to the diarrhea symptom as non-diarrhea NMOSD group (NM) and diarrhea NMOSD group (DNM) as well as healthy controls (HC, 12 female). The gut microbiota was analyzed using 16S rRNA sequencing of stool samples. In the mouse model, we found that vancomycin administration drastically altered the colon content metabolomes and microbiomes and prevented MMF-induced body weight loss, cecal and colon tissue injury. Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes converted phenyl-beta-D-glucuronide (MPAG) to mycophenolic acid (MPA) that could result in damaged intestinal tissue. We also demonstrated that the alpha diversity in the DNM group was increased and this was accompanied by increased Firmicutes and Proteobacteria abundance. Collectively, these results reveal that alterations of the gut microbiome and metabolome contribute to MMF-induced colitis. Modifying of the gut microbiome and metabolome may alleviate MMF-induced GI toxicity in NMOSD patients.Keywords Neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders, mycophenolate mofetil, gastrointestinal toxicity, multi-omics, colitis