{"id":106680,"date":"2022-08-19T09:52:37","date_gmt":"2022-08-19T13:52:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/busm\/?p=106680"},"modified":"2022-08-19T09:52:37","modified_gmt":"2022-08-19T13:52:37","slug":"stopping-moles-from-turning-into-the-deadliest-type-of-skin-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/2022\/08\/19\/stopping-moles-from-turning-into-the-deadliest-type-of-skin-cancer\/","title":{"rendered":"Stopping Moles from Turning into the Deadliest Type of Skin Cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"roundIn a small patch of skin no bigger than an inch, there are millions of cells<\/a> all performing various duties, like protecting us from bacteria and sensing temperature. A portion of them are melanocytes, a type of cell dedicated to producing melanin, the substance that gives our skin, eyes, and hair color. If triggered by UV light from the sun, melanocytes can form moles, or beauty marks.<\/p>\n

Though harmless moles are extremely common, some keep growing and growing, and mutating, until they turn into melanoma, the most deadly type of skin cancer. While melanoma accounts for only about 1 percent of all skin cancers, it causes the majority of skin cancer\u2013related deaths, most commonly in people under the age of 30, especially women. Approximately 30 percent of melanomas begin in existing moles on the skin.<\/p>\n

But why do some moles keep growing, while others don\u2019t? And can the same molecular function that stops regular moles from proliferating be applied to cancerous cells? A Boston University\u2013led team of researchers has some answers\u2014and their findings could lead to new drug targets for the successful treatment of cancer.<\/p>\n

In a paper published in Nature Communications<\/em><\/a>, they discovered that a signaling pathway that regulates growth in all cells\u2014called the Hippo tumor suppressor pathway\u2014plays a significant role in preventing the transformation of moles into melanoma. The pathway regulates growth by modulating two proteins in the cell. When active, these proteins change gene expression within cells to growth state. When inactivated, which happens when an organ reaches its full size, for example, the gene expression will change to stop growth in cells.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Hippo pathway can monitor how squished the cells are, which is basically how it knows that something is done growing,\u201d says Neil J. Ganem<\/a>, a corresponding author on the paper and a BU School of Medicine associate professor of pharmacology and medicine who studies differences between cancer cells and normal cells.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought that\u2019s what could be happening in these moles, and that the Hippo pathway stops the continuing growth of a mole,\u201d Ganem adds. They looked at mice and human cells to see what happened when the Hippo pathway was turned on or off.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen activated, we show the Hippo pathway restrains the growth of melanocytes and helps prevent their transformation into melanoma,\u201d says Marc Vittoria<\/a> (MED\u201923), a fourth-year medical student at BU and lead author of the study. \u201cSimilarly, we found that when the Hippo tumor suppressor pathway is suppressed in melanocytes, those cells rapidly go on to form melanoma in multiple experimental models.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study was supported by a five-year grant from the Melanoma Research Alliance<\/a> (MRA), called the Jackie King MRA Young Investigator Award, named after a 21-year-old who lost their life to melanoma. The MRA aims to bring young biologists with expertise in cancer cell biology into melanoma research.<\/p>\n

\u201cMelanoma is one of these cancers that can affect young people, making it particularly devastating,\u201d Ganem says. \u201cIf you find it early, it\u2019s easy to treat, but when you catch it late, and [it becomes] invasive, that is most difficult to treat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doctors will often monitor moles that could be suspicious and opt to remove any that change over time. And discovering the mechanisms our cells employ to protect against tumor formation is key to identifying new drug targets for the successful treatment of cancer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope our study highlights that targeted reactivation of the Hippo pathway is an attractive therapeutic possibility for the future treatment of melanoma,\u201d Ganem says. Though the research team focused on the role of the Hippo pathway in preventing moles from transforming into melanoma, they believe it may be acting similarly in other subtypes of cancer.<\/p>\n

This Brink<\/em> story was written by Jessica Colarossi<\/a> and Gina DiGravio<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New research shows that activating proteins that regulate growth in cells helps prevent moles from mutating into melanoma.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":903,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[91,90],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106680"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/903"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106680"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106682,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106680\/revisions\/106682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}