Melanoma

By Christina Towers, PhD

By Jamshed Arslan, Pharm. D., PhD.

Melanoma is caused by DNA damage to melanin producing cells. Common warning signs of melanoma are changes in color, size, and shape of skin/moles, new growth areas on the skin, and sores that do not heal. Protection from sun exposure and ultraviolet rays as well as regularly examining changes to skin are important for prevention.

Resources

The p14ARF (Alternative Reading Frame) tumor suppressor is a protein product of the alternative reading frame (ARF) of the human INK4a locus which regulates a series of cell cycle regulatory proteins to promote cell cycle arrest in response to abnormal hyper-proliferative growth stimuli. p14ARF alterations are common in human cancers and, when inherited, confer susceptibility to cutaneous melanoma (1).

Nucleolin is an abundant, 106 kDa nucleolar phosphoprotein that is a major protein in actively dividing cells. The stability of nucleolin is heavily cell proliferation-dependent, as nucleolin antibody studies have shown that degraded forms are relatively abundant in quiescent non-dividing cells, while nonexist in actively dividing cells.