Fig. 1

BMI-1 is overexpressed in multiple myeloma and associated with outcome. a BMI-1 expression analysis of CD138⁺ purified cells in publically available gene expression datasets displayed significant overexpression in MGUS, SMM and MM patients compared to healthy donor plasma cells. In addition, BMI-1 expression was increased at relapse (n = 29) compared to baseline (n = 433) in patients treated within TT3, but not in those of TT2 (n = 172 and n = 346, respectively). Boxplots represent median BMI-1 expression (line) and 2.5–97.5 percentile (bars). ***P < 0.001, **P < 0.01 and *P < 0.05. b High BMI-1 expression was associated with poor outcome in relapsed and/or refractory patients treated with bortezomib or dexamethasone (GSE9782) (n = 264). Samples were divided into two groups based on the maximally selected rank statistics cutoff