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Melanoma Cell Signaling Pathways

A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Pathology, Diagnostics, and Therapeutics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2021) | Viewed by 7230

Special Issue Editor

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Melanocytes are pigment cells found on the skin, which produce melanin in response to sunlight (UV radiation) exposure. Prolonged exposure to sunlight is the main carcinogen involved in melanoma formation. The formation of melanoma differs between different ethnic groups, with nodular melanoma, superficial spreading melanoma, and lentigo maligna melanoma predominantly seen amongst Caucasians; acral lentiginous melanoma predominates in other ethnic groups. Genomic analysis has shown that metastatic melanomas can be subdivided into four subtypes based on their mutation profile: BRAF-driven, NRAS-driven, NF1-mutated, and the rest are classified as triple wild-type. With the exception of the last subtype, all these melanomas possess mutations that affect signaling through the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway. The main mutation observed in melanoma is the BRAFV600E mutation, which is found in ~50% of melanomas, but surprisingly is not caused by UV radiation. In 2011, vemurafenib was approved to treat BRAFV600E melanomas; however, the initial success of this drug was dampened by the development of acquired resistance. Since then, many studies have been conducted on how acquired resistance develops and the other signaling pathways involved in this process. This Special Issue is devoted to the investigation of signaling pathways found in melanomas (e.g., MAPK, PI3K–Akt–mTOR, GPCR, and others) how they are affected by growth factors and/or inhibitors, and to what extent cross-talk occurs between them.

Prof. Dr. Terrence Piva
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • Melanoma
  • Cell signaling
  • BRAF
  • MAPK
  • PI3K-AKT-mTOR
  • GPCR

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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19 pages, 9901 KiB  
Article
Decursinol Angelate Arrest Melanoma Cell Proliferation by Initiating Cell Death and Tumor Shrinkage via Induction of Apoptosis
by Sukkum Ngullie Chang, Imran Khan, Chang Geon Kim, Seon Min Park, Dong Kyu Choi, Heejin Lee, Buyng Su Hwang, Sun Chul Kang and Jae Gyu Park
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2021, 22(8), 4096; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms22084096 - 15 Apr 2021
Cited by 20 | Viewed by 4676 | Correction
Abstract
Melanoma is known to aggressively metastasize and is one of the prominent causes of skin cancer mortality. This study was designed to assess the molecular mechanism of decursinol angelate (DA) against murine melanoma cell line (B16F10 cells). Treatment of DA resulted in growth [...] Read more.
Melanoma is known to aggressively metastasize and is one of the prominent causes of skin cancer mortality. This study was designed to assess the molecular mechanism of decursinol angelate (DA) against murine melanoma cell line (B16F10 cells). Treatment of DA resulted in growth inhibition and cell cycle arrest at G0/G1 (p < 0.001) phase, evaluated through immunoblotting. Moreover, autophagy-related proteins such as ATG-5 (p < 0.0001), ATG-7 (p < 0.0001), beclin-1 (p < 0.0001) and transition of LC3-I to LC3-II (p < 0.0001) were markedly decreased, indicating autophagosome inhibition. Additionally, DA treatment triggered apoptotic events which were corroborated by the occurrence of distorted nuclei, elevated reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels and reduction in the mitochondrial membrane potential. Subsequently, there was an increase in the expression of pro-apoptotic protein Bax in a dose-dependent manner, with the corresponding downregulation of Bcl-2 expression and cytochrome C expression following 24 h DA treatment in A375.SM and B16F10 cells. We substantiated our results for apoptotic occurrence through flow cytometry in B16F10 cells. Furthermore, we treated B16F10 cells with N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC). NAC treatment upregulated ATG-5 (p < 0.0001), beclin-1 (p < 0.0001) and LC3-I to LC3-II (p < 0.0001) conversion, which was inhibited in the DA treatment group. We also noticed a systematic upregulation of important markers for progression of G1 cell phase such as CDK-2 (p < 0.029), CDK-4 (p < 0.036), cyclin D1 (p < 0.0003) and cyclin E (p < 0.020) upon NAC treatment. In addition, we also observed a significant fold reduction (p < 0.05) in ROS fluorescent intensity and the expression of Bax (p < 0.0001), cytochrome C (p < 0.0001), cleaved caspase-9 (p > 0.010) and cleaved caspase-3 (p < 0.0001). NAC treatment was able to ameliorate DA-induced apoptosis and cell cycle arrest to support our finding. Our in vivo xenograft model also revealed similar findings, such as downregulation of CDK-2 (p < 0.0001) and CDK-4 (p < 0.0142) and upregulation of Bax (p < 0.0001), cytochrome C (p < 0.0001), cleaved caspase 3 (p < 0.0001) and cleaved caspase 9 (p < 0.0001). In summary, our study revealed that DA is an effective treatment against B16F10 melanoma cells and xenograft mice model. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Melanoma Cell Signaling Pathways)
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2 pages, 465 KiB  
Correction
Correction: Chang et al. Decursinol Angelate Arrest Melanoma Cell Proliferation by Initiating Cell Death and Tumor Shrinkage via Induction of Apoptosis. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2021, 22, 4096
by Sukkum Ngullie Chang, Imran Khan, Chang Geon Kim, Seon Min Park, Dong Kyu Choi, Heejin Lee, Buyng Su Hwang, Sun Chul Kang and Jae Gyu Park
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2022, 23(3), 1629; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms23031629 - 31 Jan 2022
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Abstract
The author wishes to make the following correction to this paper [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Melanoma Cell Signaling Pathways)
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