BACKGROUND The cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p27 plays important roles in cell proliferation, cell motility, and apoptosis. Interestingly, the nuclear and cytoplasmic p27 exert opposite biological functions. In this study, we investigated the prognostic impact of subcellular p27 expression. METHODS We constructed melanoma tissue microarrays in a large series of melanoma patients, includin...

Emergence of the invasive phenotype is a key event in the progression of human melanoma from benign proliferative lesions to malignant lesions. Recently we successfully selected in vivo from a poorly metastatic M4Beu. human melanoma cell line two variants (7GP and T1P26) that generate a higher frequency of spontaneous metastases to the lungs into immune-suppressed neonatal rats. Both cell lines...

It was shown previously that a majority of hybrids produced by in vitro fusion of normal macrophages with Cloudman S91 melanoma cells displayed enhanced metastatic potential in vivo, increased motility in vitro, increased ability to produce melanin, and responsiveness to melanocyte stimulating hormone compared with the parental Cloudman S91 melanoma cells. These hybrids also showed altered N-gl...

Compared to early-stage melanoma when surgical excision is possible, metastatic disease continues to offer a much grimmer prognosis as traditional chemotherapy treatment regimens offer relatively little survival benefit. This has led to changes in treatment approaches over the preceding two decades as contemporary methods for the treatment of advanced or metastatic melanoma now involve a number...

BACKGROUND Complete spontaneous regression of melanoma metastatic to the lungs is a rare event. OBJECTIVE To report a case of biopsy-proven melanoma metastatic to the lung with complete spontaneous regression. METHODS Multidisciplinary case report. RESULTS A 35-year-old white female was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma to the lung. A pleural biopsy confirmed the diagnosis. Partial spont...

In the previous study, we generated a monoclonal antibody, 8F11, against NL-17, a high metastatic clone derived from a metastatic variant of murine colon adenocarcinoma 26. 8F11 inhibited platelet aggregation induced by NL-17 and recognized a Mr 44,000 membrane protein as antigen. In the present study, the reactivity of 8F11 to murine B16 melanoma and its metastatic variants was examined, and t...

CTLA-4 is a negative regulator of T lymphocyte activation, and the inhibition used to treat melanoma but has limited efficacy. We measured CTLA4 mRNA expression in using TCGA tumor data found association decreased with worse patient prognosis. Because constitutively expressed regulatory (Treg) cells upregulated non-Treg cells, we blood samples. Whole samples from an Australian cohort (170 patie...

Tumor-derived exosomes are emerging mediators of tumorigenesis with tissue-specific addresses and messages. We explored the function of melanoma-derived exosomes in the formation of primary tumor and metastases in mouse and human subjects. Exosomes from highly metastatic melanoma increased the metastatic behavior of primary tumors by permanently “educating” bone marrow (BM) progenitors via the ...

BACKGROUND C-terminal tensin-like protein (Cten) is a focal adhesion protein originally identified as a tumor suppressor in prostate cancer. It has since been found to be overexpressed and function as an oncogene in numerous other cancers, but the expression status of Cten in melanoma is still unknown. METHODS Using tissue microarrays containing 562 melanocytic lesions, we evaluated Cten prot...

Human malignant melanoma is a highly aggressive form of cancer; the 5-year survival rate in patients with stage III or IV disease is <5%. In patients with metastatic melanoma, systemic therapy becomes ineffective because of the high resistance of melanoma cells to various anticancer therapies. We have found previously that development of the drug resistance and metastatic phenotypes in breast c...