Good news! Cancer is history! Maybe the researchers are on to something to treat melanoma in the near future.
"... [a study] reveals new insights about a protein called CRTC3, a genetic switch that could potentially be targeted to develop new treatments for melanoma by keeping the switch turned off. “We’ve been able to correlate the activity of this genetic switch to melanin production and cancer,” ...
Melanoma develops when pigment-producing cells that give skin its color, called melanocytes, mutate and begin to multiply uncontrollably. These mutations can cause proteins, like CRTC3, to prompt the cell to make an abnormal amount of pigment or to migrate and be more invasive. ...
The researchers observed that eliminating CRTC3 in mice caused a color change in the animal’s coat color, demonstrating that the protein is needed for melanin production. Their experiments also revealed that when the protein was absent in melanoma cells, the cells migrated and invaded less ...
The team characterized, for the first time, the connection between two cellular communications (signaling) systems that converge on the CRTC3 protein in melanocytes. These two systems tell the cell to either proliferate or make the pigment melanin. ... Essentially, a baton (chemical message) is passed from one protein to another until it reaches the CRTC3 switch, either turning it on or off.
“The fact that CRTC3 was an integration site for two signaling pathways—the relay race—was most surprising,” ..."Here is the link to the underlying research article:
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