Cyclic AMP (cAMP) is an important second messenger that regulates a wide range of physiologic processes. In mammalian cutaneous melanocytes, cAMP-mediated signaling pathways activated by G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCR), like melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R), play critical roles in melanocyte homeostasis including cell survival, proliferation, and pigment synthesis. Impaired cAMP signaling is a...

we report a young male with an initial excisional biopsy report of melanoma of the lower back, referred to our hospital for complete excision and sentinel lymph node (sln) biopsy.  four peritumoral intradermal tc-99m phytate injection was performed and slns were detected in both axillary and right inguinal regions. on the biopsy only the right axillary sln was metastatic leading to right axilla...

PURPOSE The finding of melanoma cells in the peripheral blood, thus far mainly inferred from the PCR-based demonstration of tyrosinase mRNA, has been associated with metastatic melanoma. Neither the malignant nature nor the prognostic significance of circulating cells could be established. To address this question, we analyzed immunomagnetically isolated circulating melanoma cells for chromosom...

Metastatic malignant melanoma of the urinary bladder is a rare clinical finding suggestive of advanced disease. Only 17 cases have been described in the English literature. We present a case of an 84-year-old male who was referred to the urology department with the incidental finding of bladder metastases on computed tomography (CT) one year following the diagnosis of malignant melanoma of the ...

Malignant melanoma of the parotid gland is often metastatic and mainly originates from malignant melanomas in the head and neck. Nevertheless, some malignant melanomas may metastasize and subsequently regress. Therefore, it may not be possible to observe a metastatic malignant melanoma and its primary melanoma simultaneously. The investigation of a patient's old photographs may help in the dete...

Metastatic dissemination drives the highmortality associatedwithmelanoma.However, difficulties in visualizing in vivo cell dynamics during metastatic invasion have limited our understanding of these cell behaviors. Recent evidence has revealed that melanoma cells exploit portions of their ancestral embryonic neural crest emigration program to facilitate invasion. What remains to be determined i...

Uveal melanoma patients with metastatic disease usually die within one year, emphasizing an urgent need to develop new treatment strategies for this cancer. MEK inhibitors improve survival in cutaneous melanoma patients but show only modest efficacy in metastatic uveal melanoma patients. In this study, we screened for growth factors that elicited resistance in newly characterized metastatic uve...

Metastatic melanoma is an aggressive skin cancer associated with poor prognosis. The reactivation of the embryonic morphogen Nodal in metastatic melanoma has previously been shown to regulate the aggressive behavior of these tumor cells. During the establishment of left-right asymmetry in early vertebrate development, Nodal expression is specifically regulated by aNotch signaling pathway.Wehypo...

CCN3/nephroblastoma overexpressed belongs to the CCN family of genes that encode secreted proteins associated with the extracellular matrix (ECM) and exert regulatory effects at the cellular level. Overexpression of CCN3 was shown in metastatic melanoma cells compared with cells of the primary tumor from the same patient. Analysis of short-term cultures from 50 primary and metastatic melanomas ...

BACKGROUND The most deadly form of cancer is not lung or colon, breast or prostate; it is any cancer that has become metastatic. Mortality due to metastatic melanoma, one of the most aggressive and deadly cancers, has increased steadily over the last several decades. Unfortunately, the arsenal of chemotherapeutic agents available today is most often unsuccessful at extending and improving the l...