Cancer testis antigen MAGE C1 can be used to monitor levels of circulating malignant stem cells in the peripheral blood of multiple myeloma patients

摘要

Monitoring the levels of malignant disease-causing cells in multiple myeloma, as opposed to the clinical symptoms alone, is an important move forward in the management of this disease. While current methods including multiparametric flow cytometry and PCR analysis of the clonal plasma cells can be used in a patient-specific manner, their use is limited and the fundamental malignant progenitor cell is not being monitored. The expression of cancer testis antigen MAGE C1 has been linked to the malignant stem cell in this disease, and thus, we investigated the use of both flow cytometric and qRTPCR approaches to monitor its expression as an alternative monitoring methodology in this pilot study.