Research
Genomic classification of melanoma has thus far focused on the mutational status of BRAF, NRAS, and NF1. The clinical utility of this classification remains limited, and the landscape of alterations in other oncogenic signaling pathways is underexplored.
It is unclear why some melanomas aggressively metastasize while others remain indolent. Available studies employing multi-omic profiling of melanomas are based on large primary or metastatic tumors. We examine the genomic landscape of early-stage melanomas diagnosed prior to the modern era of immunological treatments.
January 2020
Epigenetics Silencing of CDR1as Drives IGF2BP3
Metastasis is the primary cause of death of cancer patients. Dissecting mechanisms governing metastatic spread may uncover important tumor biology and/or yield promising therapeutic insights. Here, we investigated the role of circular RNAs (circRNA) in metastasis, using melanoma as a model aggressive tumor. We identified silencing of cerebellar degeneration-related 1 antisense (CDR1as), a regulator of miR-7, as a hallmark of melanoma progression. CDR1as depletion results from...
August 2018
Melanoma – role of the environment and genetics
Melanoma rates have increased in populations that are mainly European. The main etiologic factor is ultraviolet radiation, from the sun as well as artificial tanning devices. Host factors such as skin color, number of nevi, hair and eye color and tanning ability are critical factors in modifying an individual’s response to the sun. Genetic factors interact with host factors and environmental factors to increase risk. This review summarizes our current knowledge of environment...
November 2018
Gene characteristics predicting missense, nonsense and frameshift mutations in tumor samples
Because driver mutations provide selective advantage to the mutant clone, they tend to occur at a higher frequency in tumor samples compared to selectively neutral (passenger) mutations. However, mutation frequency alone is insufficient to identify cancer genes because mutability is influenced by many gene characteristics, such as size, nucleotide composition, etc. The goal of this study was to identify gene characteristics associated with the frequency of somatic mutations i...
BRAF and NRAS mutations arise early in melanoma development, but their associations with low-penetrance melanoma susceptibility loci remain unknown. In the Genes, Environment and Melanoma Study, 1,223 European-origin participants had their incident invasive primary melanomas screened for BRAF/NRAS mutations and germline DNA genotyped for 47 single-nucleotide polymorphisms identified as low-penetrant melanoma-risk variants. We used multinomial logistic regression to simultaneo...
Adaptive immune responses contribute to the pathogenesis of melanoma by facilitating immune evasion. V-domain Ig suppressor of T-cell activation (VISTA) is a potent negative regulator of T-cell function and is expressed at high levels on monocytes, granulocytes, and macrophages, and at lower densities on T-cell populations within the tumor microenvironment. In this study, 85 primary melanoma specimens were selected from pathology tissue archives and immunohistochemically stai...
November 2017
TYRP1 mRNA Goes Fishing for miRNAs in Melanoma
A variety of non-coding RNAs have been reported as endogenous sponges for cancer-modulating miRNAs. However, miRNA trapping by transcripts with protein-coding functions is less understood. The mRNA of TYRP1 is now found to sequester the tumour suppressor miR‑16 on non-canonical miRNA response elements in melanoma, thereby promoting malignant growth.