MICROARRAY ANALYSIS REVEALS PATHWAYS AND BIOLOGICAL PROCESSES IN MYELOMA CELL LINE L363 WHICH ARE INFLUENCED BY MICROENVIRONMENT

Multiple myeloma, also called Kahler disease or myelomatosis is a debilitating and incurable malignancy characterized by proliferation of malignant plasma cells and an increased production of monoclonal paraproteins. In multiple myeloma, the abnormal proliferation of plasma cells within the bone marrow interferes with the production of blood cells therefor leading to anemia, leukopenia and thrombocytopenia. Another characteristic of disease is the activation of osteoclasts which leads to osteolytic lesions accompanied by fractures, bone pain, hypercalcemia and renal failure. Since a key factor in the pathology of multiple myeloma is represented by the interaction between bone marrow stroma and plasma cells we have designed an in vitro experiment where L363 myeloma cells have been grown together with bone marrow stromal cells. The negative control was represented by L363 cells cultured alone. Following coculture, RNA from L363 plasma cells was extracted, revers-transcribed and analyzed by microarray techniques to identify biological processes and pathways which are affected by differentially expressed genes. Among these biological processes we mention regulation of cell cycle, apoptosis, and STAT genes activation.