Common genetic variants in 11q13.3 and 9q22.33 are associated with molecular subgroups of multiple myeloma

Erickson, S., Stephens, O., Chavan, S., Tian, E., Epstein, J., Barlogie, B., ... Vangsted, A. (2015). Common genetic variants in 11q13.3 and 9q22.33 are associated with molecular subgroups of multiple myeloma. Leukemia, 29(12), 2418-2421. DOI: 10.1038/leu.2015.238

Recently, Weinhold et al.1 reported the association of a potentially functional single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the CCND1 gene with an increased incidence of t(11;14) in multiple myeloma (MM). MM can be classified by gene expression profiling (GEP) into seven well-defined molecular subgroups, of which four are strongly influenced by specific translocations involving the immunoglobulin heavy chain locus. These translocations are characterized by transcriptional activation of the genes CCND1 [t(11;14)(q13;q32)], CCND3 [t(6;14)(p21;q32)], c-MAF [t(14;16)(q32;q23)], MAFB [t(14;20)(q32;q11)] and FGFR3/MMSET [t(4;14)(q16;q32)].