Proteasome inhibitors (PIs) such as bortezomib constitute an important part of the modern standard therapy for multiple myeloma (MM). In this study, we set out to assess whether proteasome concentration and chymotrypsin-like (ChT-L) activity could serve as potential biomarkers defining the likelihood of response to treatment with bortezomib, in order to identify patients who are more likely to respond to treatment with PI. We analysed proteasome concentration and ChT-L activity in the plasma of 78 patients with newly diagnosed MM during treatment with or without proteasome inhibitors. Values of all the studied parameters in the group of responders decreased sharply from the initial levels already after the third cycle of chemotherapy and remained significantly lower until the end of treatment. On the other hand, in the group of non-responders, there was an increase in the measured proteasome parameters already after the third cycle, and they remained high during the next cycles of therapy. We also showed that high baseline proteasome ChT-L activity values might prognosticate longer progression-free survival (PFS) in patients treated with PI. Our findings demonstrate that measuring plasma proteasome ChT-L activity can be used as a powerful biomarker for predicting clinical response to treatment and PFS in patients with newly diagnosed MM.
Keywords: Bortezomib; Chymotrypsin-like activity; Multiple myeloma; Proteasome.