Rutgers University Researcher Discovers Gene That Causes Melanoma Posted Monday, April 21, 2003 by ctustis
Mon Apr 21 12:29:22 2003 Pacific Time
Rutgers University Researcher Discovers Gene That Causes
Melanoma; Results Published in Nature Genetics

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J., April 21 (AScribe Newswire) -- Rutgers
University Associate Professor Suzie Chen has discovered a gene
responsible for melanoma, the most aggressive form of malignant skin
cancer. A paper describing the research by Chen and her colleagues at
the National Human Genome Research Institute will be published online
by Nature Genetics on April 21, and will appear subsequently in a
print issue of the journal.

Melanoma may appear in places that never see sun, spread to
other parts of the body and become lethal. This type of cancer is not
generally responsive to chemotherapy. According to a report from the
National Cancer Institute, in the United States the incidence rate of
melanoma has more than doubled in the past 20 years.

Chen has been on the track of this gene since her 1995 arrival
at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Her research was
conducted in the Susan Lehman Cullman Laboratory for Cancer Research
at Rutgers' Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy.

"I did not set out to do a melanoma study," said Chen. "All my
life I have been interested in cell transformation and
differentiation. In this case, I was investigating how a fat cell
becomes a fat cell when I observed that one of the mice in my
experiment developed pigmented tumors. Upon further characterization,
these tumors were confirmed to be melanoma."

"After many years of work, we identified a gene that was
involved in these skin abnormalities and went on to prove that it
indeed causes melanoma in the mouse system," said Chen. Surprisingly,
the gene is not a known oncogene - one known to cause cancer - but
one whose normal functions are in the brain.

Chen explained that the expression of a given gene, whether it
is turned on or off, or when, is tightly regulated by many factors.
"It is only in a melanocyte skin cell when the expression of this
particular gene is turned on that it leads to the development of
melanoma," said Chen. "While in the brain, where it is expressed
normally, its functions are associated with learning and memory."

Chen and her collaborators took the next step in this
scientific investigation using human biopsy tissues with various
stages of melanoma. In more than one third of these human samples,
they detected signs of the same aberrant gene expression seen in the
laboratory animals that had melanoma. This confirmed that the gene
involved in melanoma development in the mice is also implicated in
some human melanomas. While there are typically many paths leading to
cancer development, this is a breakthrough in pinpointing one of them
that occurs in both animals and humans.

"We hope to use this knowledge we've gained to investigate
better ways of treating the disease. Early detection is key in
treating melanoma, but malignant melanoma does not normally respond
well to conventional chemotherapy," said Chen. "We need to find more
effective ways to treat the disease. The biggest problem we have is
our inability to target the tumor cells. Most of the treatments
available today affect normal cells, as well. With our understanding
of at least one genetic factor in melanoma, we may now have the
ability to design a new, more specific drug to target that gene or
the protein it expresses," she concluded.