Systematic Characterization Of Genes Representing Preferential Molecular Vulnerabilities For Myeloma Cells Compared To Other Neoplasias - Implications For The Biology And Therapeutic Targeting Of Myeloma

In the last 2 decades, the improved clinical outcomes for multiple myeloma (MM) patients have been driven predominantly by therapeutics which exhibit limited activity outside plasma cell (PC) dyscrasias; do not target specific oncogenic mutations in MM cells, but rather pathways which are critical for PCs and dispensable for normal or malignant cells of most other lineages. We reasoned that identification of genes that are more potently / recurrently essential for MM cells, but less so for other neoplasias, would allow us to "re-identify" targets of currently used "PC-selective" anti-MM therapies. We also reasoned that systematic identification of MM-preferential dependencies could also uncover additional, previously underappreciated, genes which can serve as targets for potential future therapies and hopefully contribute to additional improvements in the therapeutic outcome for MM. To this end, we performed genome …