Aptamers, a New Therapeutic Opportunity for the Treatment of Multiple Myeloma

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Multiple Myeloma (MM) remains incurable due to high relapse rates and fast development of drug resistances. Monoclonal antibodies (mAb) have revolutionized MM treatment, opening the door to chemotherapy-free yet curative treatments. Nevertheless, antibody-based therapies face several difficulties which could be overcome by nucleic acid aptamers. Aptamers are short oligonucleotide ligands that bind their targets with great affinity and specificity, and can be easily conjugated to different cargoes for their cell-specific delivery. This review summarizes the aptamers that have been tested in MM so far with promising results, and proposes various strategies for the further development of aptamer-based strategies against MM. ABSTRACT: Multiple Myeloma (MM) remains an incurable disease due to high relapse rates and fast development of drug resistances. The introduction of monoclonal antibodies (mAb) has caused a paradigm shift in MM treatment, paving the way for targeted approaches with increased efficacy and reduced toxicities. Nevertheless, antibody-based therapies face several difficulties such as high immunogenicity, high production costs and limited conjugation capacity, which we believe could be overcome by the introduction of nucleic acid aptamers. Similar to antibodies, aptamers can bind to their targets with great affinity and specificity. However, their chemical nature reduces their immunogenicity and production costs, while it enables their conjugation to a wide variety of cargoes for their use as delivery agents. In this review, we summarize several aptamers that have been tested against MM specific targets with promising results, establishing the rationale for the further development of aptamer-based strategies against MM. In this direction, we believe that the study of novel plasma cell surface markers, the development of intracellular aptamers and further research on aptamers as building blocks for complex nanomedicines will lead to the generation of next-generation targeted approaches that will undoubtedly contribute to improve the management and life quality of MM patients.