by ecancer reporter Vanessa Lane

Cereblon (CRBN) is a primary teratogenic target for thalidomide in the anti-myeloma activity of immunomodulatory drugs (IMiDs).

In in vitro and in vivo studies, the majority of myeloma cell lines and patients resistant to IMiDs show very low levels of CRBN.

Interestingly, although CRBN depletion is initially cytotoxic to human myeloma cells, surviving myeloma cells with stable CRBN depletion have been found to become highly resistant to both lenalidomide and pomalidomide.

However, this is not seen with the unrelated drugs bortezomib, dexamethasone and melphalan.

This studies suggest that expression of CBRN may help to predict response to IMiD therapy and survival outcomes. However, future studies are needed to confirm this.