Our immune system is incredibly effective at getting rid of bacterial and viral infections that can harm us. But cancer, which starts from our own cells growing out of control, poses a bigger challenge.
Scientists have long known that, for some cancers at least, employing devious methods to trick or hide from the immune system is paramount to their survival.
In a recent study published in Science Signaling entitled “The E3 ligase APC/CCdh1 promotes ubiquitylation-mediated proteolysis of PAX3 to suppress melanocyte proliferation and melanoma growth“, scientists from the Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) found that humans susceptible to develop melanoma cancer have lower levels of Cdh1, a tumor suppressor gene. This gene belongs to a protein complex called Anaphase-Promoting Complex (APC/C).
There is strong evidence that the protein complex APC/C may function as a tumor suppressor in multiple cancers including lymphoma, colorectal and breast cancer, and now melanoma. A new study has revealed that a genetic mutation leading to repression of a specific protein, Cdh1, which interacts with APC/C, is present in melanoma cancer cells.
Sentinel lymph node positivity occurred less frequently in patients with primary melanoma who had histologic regression, according to the results of a systemic review and meta-analysis.
