Many factors play important roles in the pathogenesis of multiple myeloma. We focus on how transforming growth factor (TGF)-β family signaling pathways affects myeloma cell growth and survival.
This family includes ligands such as TGF-β, activins, BMPs and GDFs. Some of these ligands send «suicide signals» to myeloma cells. Many factors influence this process and the effect of a given ligand will always depend on the context. We aim to understand exactly how ligands kill myeloma cells.
We hope this research will help us to develop novel drugs for treatment of myeloma patients.
Proposed dual-specificity of activins. Activins and BMPs share type II receptors, but we here show that they also can share the type I receptor ACVR1, or ALK2. This shows that activins can activate both SMAD pathways in given contexts. For myeloma cells this means that not only BMPs, but also activins, can induce growth arrest and apoptosis. The image was created with Biorender.com and was published in Olsen OE et al., Biomolecules 2020, 10(4), 519; https://doi.org/10.3390/biom10040519
Even Rustad and Toril Holien, Myeloma reseach group. Photo: Eddy Grønset
