Metastatic melanoma is the deadliest of all skin cancers. Despite progress in diagnostics and treatment of melanoma, the prognosis for metastatic patients remains poor. We previously showed that Membrane-type 1 Matrix Metalloproteinase (MT1-MMP) is one of the drivers of melanoma metastasis. Classically, MT1-MMP regulates a verity of cellular functions including cell-to-cell interaction and cell...

Previous whole-exome sequencing has demonstrated that melanoma tumors harbor mutations in the GRIN2A gene. GRIN2A encodes the regulatory GluN2A subunit of the glutamate-gated N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor (NMDAR), involvement of which in melanoma remains undefined. Here, we sequenced coding exons of GRIN2A in 19 low-passage melanoma cell lines derived from patients with metastatic melanoma. Pot...

Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer in the United States with an increasing prevalence. However, the development of melanoma from a melanocyte precursor is still poorly defined. Understanding the molecules responsible for melanoma progression may lead to improved targeted therapy. One potential molecule is the paired box-3 (PAX-3) protein, which has been implicated in the development ...

The in vitro expression level of interleukin-8 (IL-8) correlates with the metastatic potential of human melanoma cells. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the expression level of IL-8 in human melanoma cells is influenced by the organ microenvironment. A375P cells, a low metastatic human melanoma, and A375SM cells, a highly metastatic variant, were injected into the subcutis (s....

Pigment epithelium-derived factor (PEDF), a member of the serine protease inhibitor (SERPIN) superfamily, displays a potent antiangiogenic and antimetastatic activity in a broad range of tumor types. Melanocytes and low aggressive melanoma cells secrete high levels of PEDF, while its expression is lost in highly aggressive melanomas. PEDF efficiently abrogates a number of functional properties ...

Lysosome Associated Membrane protein-1 (LAMP1) which lines the lysosomes, is often found to appear on the surface of several cells involved in migratory and/or invasive functions including metastatic tumor cells. However, the mechanism of its surface translocation in these cells is still poorly understood. Glycosylation, one of the major post-translational modifications of membrane proteins, re...

Introduction: Finding an effective treatment for metastatic melanoma has posed a series of challenges. Vemurafenib, a B-RAF tyrosine kinase inhibitor, has been one of the most successful medications to date in the treatment of metastatic melanoma. B-RAF is a serine/threonine kinase that is a part of the RAS-RAF-MEK-ERK signal transduction pathway, which plays a pivotal role in cellular prolifer...

BACKGROUND Microcell-mediated transfer of chromosome 6 into human C8161 and MelJuSo melanoma cell suppresses their ability to metastasize by at least 95% without affecting their tumorigenicity. This observation demonstrates that the ability to metastasize is a phenotype distinct from tumor formation and suggests that tumorigenic cells acquire metastatic capability only after accumulating additi...

A potential diagnostic pitfall in the management of patients with melanoma is the inability to recognize metastatic melanoma, especially if it shows unusual features. We describe a case of multiple epidermotropic metastatic melanoma, which finally recurred with an extensive chondroid differentiation. To our knowledge, this is the first description of a case of epidermotropic chondroid metastati...

BACKGROUND Melanoma is the major cause of skin cancer death worldwide. Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that is caused by mutation of alpha-synuclein or other genes. Importantly, epidemiological studies have reported co-occurrence of melanoma and Parkinson's disease, suggesting that these two diseases could share common genetic components. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Rec...