Melanomas Are "Born to Run”
By Biotechdaily staff writers
Posted on 13 Oct 2005
Cancer researchers have learned why melanomas are so aggressively malignant while other types of cancer may require years of development before being able to metastasize.Posted on 13 Oct 2005
Investigators at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, USA) found that a gene called SLUG (named after the embryo shape that the mutated gene causes in fruit flies), which is turned off in normal adult tissue, is activated in melanomas. SLUG is a leftover from the neural crest developmental stage when primal melanocytes are formed. Cells with active SLUG are readily able to spread throughout the body.
When melanoma cells were genetically engineered to lack SLUG activity, they were unable to metastasize after being transplanted into susceptible mice. Detailed findings were published in September 4, 2005, online edition of Nature Genetics.
"Other cancers need to learn how to spread, but not melanoma,” said senior author Dr. Robert Weinberg, professor of biology at MIT. "Now, for the first time, we understand the genetic mechanism responsible for this.”
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