Identification of key genes in melanoma metastasis and investigating their potential as biomarkers

Background and Aim: Considering the high global incidence of skin cancer and the high mortality rate caused by melanoma, it is important to identify the genes involved in this disease and predict effective drugs. Therefore, in this study, we have identified and investigated the expression level of effective and key genes in melanoma metastasis, as well as investigating their diagnostic potential as biological markers and finding effective drugs on the expression of these genes.   Methods: In this study, we have used 46 cancer samples without metastasis and 12 cancer samples with metastasis from the GEO database and from the GSE15605 study with 74 samples including 16 normal samples. Gene expression profile in this study was generated by GPL570 platform containing 54675 probes. The latest GPL570 annotation file has been downloaded and initial processing was done.   Results: The results showed that the expression level of candidate genes in metastasis samples had a significant change compared to normal samples. The results of analysing the data related to candidate genes in this study indicated that the drugs Glucosamine, Ad-E2F-1 plus Doxorubicn, GSI, Torcetrapib, Ribavirin and NSC319726 could be effective on the expression of MYH10, SPRR3 and TOP2A genes, respectively. On the other hand, the results from the drug bank database revealed that various drugs such as Amsacrine, Dexrazoxane, Valrubicin, Teniposide can have an inhibitory role on the TOP2A gene.   Conclusion: GEO database was used to identify key genes in melanoma metastasis and DRUGBANK was used to identify drugs that affect the expression of these genes.