Fig. 1.

Integrin-α8 is highly expressed in MM patients with early relapse. (A) Heatmap of 529 genes differentially expressed between the PFS duration < 12 months group (n=7) and > 12 months group (n = 9) (P < 0.05). (B) Heatmap of 1018 genes differentially expressed between the early group (n = 4) and late group (n = 4) (P < 0.05). (C) Relative expression level based on microarray analysis of the group of PFS 12-month criterion (< 12 months or > 12 months) and extreme PFS (early or late): ITGA8, ITGA7, and PDGFB. (D) ITGA8 mRNA level in 16 relapsed patients was validated by real time PCR and the bar graph indicates the order of PFS duration. The mRNA expression was normalized to 18s transcript and data shown are the mean ± SD from three independent experiments (arbitrary units). (E) ITGA8 mRNA expression among the cancer type was obtained from cBioPortal (http://www.cbioportal.org). (F) Integrin-α8 mRNA and protein expression were screened in 8 MM cell lines (RPMI-8226, U266, KMS-12-BM, KMS-12-PE, MOLP8, NCI-H929, LP1 and EJM) by qRT-PCR and western blotting. The mRNA expression data shown are the means ± SD from three independent experiments (arbitrary units).