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Figure 3. Role of autophagy in plasma cell ontogeny and malignancy. Differentiating plasma cells and MM cells induce autophagy to restrict the ER and downregulate BLIMP-1 expression to decrease immunoglobulin synthesis and deal with excessive proteotoxic stress. Autophagy is also essential for the survival and maintenance of memory B cells and BM long-lived plasma cells. In MM, induction of autophagy has been linked with bortezomib resistance. Image adapted from Milan et al.^[60]