What makes melanoma so malignant...

Melanoma cells apparently don't have to learn how to spread and that makes them so much deadlier than other cancer cells. At least that is what recent research is suggesting. These findings by the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research were published recently in Nature Genetics and they are all over the medical news today. Unless you have a medical degree, you'll most likely get more out of the articles below than the published research in Nature Genetics:

BBC News
Newswise
DeHavilland

Excerpts from BBC News:

Lead researcher Professor Robert Weinberg said: "Other cancers need to learn how to spread, but not melanoma.

"Now, for the first time, we understand the genetic mechanism responsible for this."

The spread of disease to an unconnected body part - known as metastasis - is a highly inefficient, multi-step process that requires cancer cells to jump through many hoops.

The cells first must invade a nearby tissue, then make their way into the blood or lymphatic vessels.

Next they must migrate through the bloodstream to a distant site, exit the bloodstream, and establish new colonies.

Researchers have wondered why melanoma in particular is able to do this not only more efficiently than other cancers, but at a far earlier stage.

The latest study shows that as melanocytes - cells that protect the skin from sun damage by producing pigmentation - morph into cancer cells, they immediately reawaken a dormant cellular process that lets them travel swiftly throughout the body.

Central to this reawakened process is a gene called Slug which plays a key role in allowing cells to travel around the developing embryo in the womb.

Normally the gene is shut off in adult tissues, but the researchers found that when skin cells become malignant they reactivate Slug, and thus immediately acquire the ability to spread.

Dr Julie Sharp, senior cancer information officer at Cancer Research UK, said: "If scientists can target treatments to block the Slug gene, they might be able to prevent cancer spread and improve survival from this disease in the future," she said.

"It is also important to remember that the vast majority of melanomas are caused by UV damage from excess sun exposure."