We demonstrated that BCMA/CD269 is highly expressed in aPCs from a majority of MM patients, both at diagnosis and relapse. Thus, BCMA is a valuable target for therapy for Indian MM patients.
Whereas, 100% sBCMA detection in NDMM patients was not followed by CD269 detection on malignant PC in half of the patients. These findings may indicate both the heterogeneity of MM and the necessity for further studies of sBCMA and sSLAMF7 to determine their prognostic significance.
CD319 and CD269 express stably and continuously in plasma cells of MM patients at different disease stages. CD319 can be used as an alternative of CD38 for immunophenotyping and MRD detection, especially for MRD detection after DARA treatment, while CD269 is suitable for detection before BCMA-CAR-T treatment.