Chemerin is elevated in multiple myeloma patients and is expressed by stromal cells and pre-adipocytes

Abstract

Chemerin is a recently discovered adipokine shown to be involved in both inflammatory and metabolic processes. Here, we demonstrate that chemerin serum levels are elevated in patients with multiple myeloma and that it increases with disease progression. We found that chemerin is expressed by stromal cells and preadipocytes, whereas its receptor CCRL2 is expressed by primary myeloma cells, suggesting a paracrine signaling loop between bone marrow stromal cells/adipocytes and myeloma cells. This is the first study exploring chemerin and its receptors in multiple myeloma.

Keywords: Adipocyte; Chemerin; Multiple myeloma; Stromal cell.

Fig. 1

a Serum levels of chemerin measured by ELISA (R&D Duoset) in 122 patients, and 58 healthy age and gender-matched controls. b Chemerin levels based on ISS stage. c Blood- and bone marrow plasma levels of chemerin in myeloma patients obtained from our biobank (n = 10). d PCR analysis of chemerin (RARRES2) expression by myeloma-derived stromal cells (n = 15), primary myeloma cells (n = 24) and myeloma cell lines (n = 9). e Healthy bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stromal cell donors differentiated towards adipocytes (n = 3 donors) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Conditioned cell culture media were harvested at every medium change. Chemerin levels in the conditioned media were measured by ELISA (R&D Duoset). Error bars = SEM f Expression of chemerin (RARRES2), CCRL2 and CMKLR1 in malignant plasma cells from 673 myeloma patients available in the CoMMpass database, release IA9. Red bars indicate mean in a, b, d and f