Soluble c-Met in serum of patients with multiple myeloma: correlation with clinical parameters.

OBJECTIVES: The receptor tyrosine kinase c-Met and its ligand, hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), play key roles in tumour genesis and metastasis and contribute in multiple myeloma pathogenesis. Substantial data support that a soluble extracellular fragment of c-Met may function as a decoy receptor that downregulates the biological effects of HGF and c-Met. We examined serum levels of soluble c-Met in patients with myeloma and healthy individuals and investigated a possible relationship with clinical disease parameters and survival. METHODS: The concentration of c-Met and HGF was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in serum (n=49) and bone marrow plasma (n=16) from patients with multiple myeloma and in serum from healthy controls (n=26). RESULTS: The median serum concentration of soluble c-Met was 186 ng/mL (range 22-562) in patients with multiple myeloma and 189 ng/mL (range 124-397) in healthy individuals. There was a significant negative correlation between serum c-Met levels and disease stage, bone marrow plasma cell percentage and serum concentration of M-protein. CONCLUSION: We have for the first time examined the concentration of soluble c-Met in serum from patients with myeloma and found equal median levels in patients with myeloma as a group and healthy individuals. Still, serum levels of soluble c-Met correlated negatively with parameters of disease burden in patients with myeloma. We suggest that a possible role for the c-Met ectodomain as a negative regulator of HGF/c-Met activity should be examined in multiple myeloma.

Mn2+ regulates myeloma cell adhesion differently than the proadhesive cytokines HGF, IGF-1, and SDF-1alpha.

Adhesion of multiple myeloma (MM) cells in the bone marrow (BM) is important for the growth and survival of the myeloma cells. Very late antigen-4 (VLA-4) is one of the main adhesion receptors that mediate MM cell binding to fibronectin (FN). In this study we have examined the effect of divalent cations on adhesion of MM cells to FN, and compared this type of adhesion with the adhesion induced by the cytokines HGF, IGF-1 and SDF-1alpha. Mn(2+) induced adhesion in all cell lines tested. Cytokine- and Mn(2+)-induced VLA-4-mediated adhesion were different in many respects, including binding specificity, adhesion kinetics and the activation state of VLA-4. To study a potential role of divalent cations in vivo, we measured the concentrations of divalent cations in BM plasma from 14 MM patients. We also found that Mn(2+)-mediated adhesion to FN activated the MAPK pathway, indicating that the interaction of MM-cells with FN mediated by Mn(2+) could play a critical role for growth and proliferation. In conclusion, this study shows a potential important role of divalent cations in MM cell biology and supports earlier studies pointing to activated VLA-4 as a key for homing of MM cells to the BM.

Overexpression and involvement in migration by the metastasis-associated phosphatase PRL-3 in human myeloma cells.

Multiple myeloma (MM) is characterized by accumulation and dissemination of malignant plasma cells (PCs) in the bone marrow (BM). Gene expression profiling of 2 MM cell lines (OH-2 and IH-1) indicated that expression of PRL-3, a metastasis-associated tyrosine phosphatase, was induced by several mitogenic cytokines. Cytokine-driven PRL-3 expression could be shown in several myeloma cell lines at both the mRNA and protein levels. There was significantly higher expression of the PRL-3 gene in PCs from patients with monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS), smoldering myeloma (SMM), and myeloma than in PCs from healthy persons. Among 7 MM subgroups identified by unsupervised hierarchical cluster analysis, PRL-3 gene expression was significantly higher in the 3 groups denoted as "proliferation," "low bone disease," and "MMSET/FGFR3." PRL-3 protein was detected in 18 of 20 BM biopsies from patients with MM. Silencing of the PRL-3 gene by siRNA reduced cell migration in the MM cell line INA-6, but had no detectable effect on proliferation and cell-cycle phase distribution of the cells. In conclusion, PRL-3 is a gene product specifically expressed in malignant plasma cells and may have a role in migration of these cells.