Lomas Jesus, Martin-Duque Pilar, Pons Mar, Quintanilla Miguel
Instituto de Investigaciones Biomedicas Alberto Sols, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas-Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain.
Front Biosci. 2008 May 1;13:5071-93. doi: 10.2741/3065.
Melanoma probably is the most aggressive cancer in humans and remains one of the leading causes of cancer death in developed countries. This review summarizes the most important alterations in protooncogenes and tumor suppressor genes that contribute to the pathogenesis of malignant melanoma, with a special emphasis on the involved signaling pathways. Our knowledge of the molecular biology of melanoma has been benefited from recent advances on high-throughput technologies analyzing wide genomic and gene expression profiles that have uncovered unknown candidate genes. To test the interactions between distinct pathways and of those with the environment a wealth of genetically modified animal models has been generated over the past years. Other studies have focused on the isolation of melanoma stem cells and on the characterization of signaling pathways that contribute to their survival and maintenance. A consequence of all these studies is the emergence of potential new strategies that could improve the still inadequate arsenal of therapeutic tools to fight against this fatal disease.
黑色素瘤可能是人类最具侵袭性的癌症，并且仍然是发达国家癌症死亡的主要原因之一。本综述总结了原癌基因和肿瘤抑制基因中导致恶性黑色素瘤发病机制的最重要改变，特别强调了相关的信号通路。我们对黑色素瘤分子生物学的认识受益于高通量技术的最新进展，这些技术分析了广泛的基因组和基因表达谱，发现了未知的候选基因。为了测试不同信号通路之间以及这些信号通路与环境之间的相互作用，在过去几年中已经建立了大量的基因修饰动物模型。其他研究则集中在黑色素瘤干细胞的分离以及对有助于其存活和维持的信号通路的表征。所有这些研究的一个结果是出现了潜在的新策略，这些策略可以改进对抗这种致命疾病的治疗工具仍然不足的状况。
