Neoplastic plasma cell aberrant antigen expression patterns and their association with genetic abnormalities

Abstract

Little is known about aberrant antigen expression patterns and their association with cytogenetic aberrations in multiple myeloma (MM). We examined the correlation between flow cytometry and florescence in situ hybridization (FISH) in 167 marrow specimens with MM. Gene expression profiling of CD56, CD117, CD52 and CD20 mRNA in plasma cells (PCs) from patients treated on Total Therapy 2 and Total Therapy 3 trials were also evaluated. Higher expression of CD56 and CD117 was associated with hyperdiploidy. High CD52 mRNA expression was associated with c-MAF and FGFR3 subgroups. Higher expression of CD56 mRNA, but lower Kit expression, were noted in association with FGFR3. In contrast, the c-MAF subgroup showed high Kit expression but lacked NCAM mRNA expression. CKS1B amplification showed positive correlation with CD52 (p = 0.0065) but negative correlation with CD20 (p = 0.0207). These findings indicate that phenotypic differences in MM are associated with distinct genetic subgroups, which potentially has important diagnostic and prognostic value.

Keywords::

• Cytogenetics
• molecular genetics
• myeloma

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Cancer Institute grants R01CA152105 (to F.Z.); the Leukemia Lymphoma Society TRP (to F.Z.); and the National Natural Science Foundation of China, China (no. 81228016 to F.Z.). We would like to thank Susan Schulman for help with manuscript edits.

Potential conflict of interest:

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