A comparative analysis of transcriptomics of newly diagnosed multiple myeloma: exploring drug repurposing

Multiple myeloma (MM) is an incurable malignant plasma cell disorder characterized by the infiltration of clonal plasma cells in the bone marrow compartment. Gene Expression Profiling (GEP) has emerged as a powerful investigation tool in modern myeloma research enabling the dissection of the molecular background of MM and allowing the identification of gene products that could potentially serve as targets for therapeutic intervention. In this study we investigated shared transcriptomic abnormalities across newly diagnosed multiple myeloma (NDMM) patient cohorts. In total, publicly available transcriptomic data of 7 studies from CD138+ cells from 281 NDMM patients and 44 healthy individuals were integrated and analyzed. Overall, we identified 28 genes that were consistently differentially expressed (DE) between NDMM patients and healthy donors (HD) across various studies. Of those, 9 genes were over/under-expressed in more than 75% of NDMM patients. In addition, we identified 4 genes (MT1F, PURPL, LINC01239 and LINC01480) that were not previously considered to participate in MM pathogenesis. Meanwhile, by mining three drug databases (ChEMBL, IUPHAR/BPS and DrugBank) we identified 31 FDA-approved and 144 experimental drugs that target 8 of these 28 over/under-expressed MM genes. Taken together, our study offers new insights in MM pathogenesis and importantly, it reveals potential new treatment options that need to be further investigated in future studies.