A new study by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center integrates paired single-cell RNA and B cell receptor sequencing from large cohort of patients to shed lights on the processes involved into the evolution of multiple myeloma from precursor disease. Dr. Dang and his colleagues present data that highlight the intratumoral transcriptional heterogeneity as well as differences in the interaction between the tumor and microenvironment across samples of different genetic subtypes. This study may help better identify patients likely to progress and therefore likely to benefit from early therapeutic interventions. Moreover, it provides novel biomarkers potentially related to disease progression to be exploited as novel therapeutic targets.
“One of the important achievements in the study is the use of new methodology with the integration of fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) with single-cell RNA sequencing data to uncover the genetic tumor and microenvironment cell subtypes present in each patient.” commented Dr Elisabeth Manasanch, senior author of the study. Additionally, the use of B cell receptor sequencing allowed the authors to detect clonal from normal plasma cells even in the early stages of evolution in myeloma precursor disease and describe their evolutionary patterns. “These results could have important clinical implications such with diverse evolution patterns and differential genetic expression in subclonal populations and their association with risk of progression to overt disease or response/refractoriness to treatment.” added Dr Manasanch.
Refers to:
Dang, M. et al. Single cell clonotypic and transcriptional evolution of multiple myeloma precursor disease, Cancer Cell https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccell.2023.05.007 (2023)
