Study evaluates the tumor-modulatory effects of opsins on melanoma cancer
Source: News Medical Life Science, August 2022
Melanopsin (OPN4) is a light-sensing protein found in skin and retina cells. A new study conducted at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil suggests that OPN4 can also participate in the development and progression of melanoma, the most aggressive type of skin cancer.
In experiments with animals and genetically modified cells at the Comparative Physiology of Pigmentation Laboratory belonging to the Institute of Biosciences (IB-USP), the researchers showed that the disease advances more slowly when this protein is not functional. The findings are reported in an article published in Communications Biology, a Springer Nature journal.
Although other groups had already shown that opsins are involved in cancer, this is the first such finding for melanoma, which accounts for 5% of malignant skin tumors and 80% of all deaths from cancer. The study was supported by FAPESP (projects 17/24615-5, 17/26651-9, 18/14728-0, and 19/19005-9.