A protein that helps cells produce pigment appears to hold the
key to creating more effective treatments for melanoma,
according to researchers at The University of Manchester. The
protein, MITF, enables cancer cells to resist MEK inhibitors, a
new category of drugs that has shown less success than expected
during clinical trials. That explains why human melanoma cells
that didn't respond to an MEK inhibitor contained much higher
levels of the protein SMURF2, in a comparison of such cells to
human melanoma cells that did respond carried out by a team led
by Claudia Wellbrock, Ph.D., at the Wellcome Trust Centre for
Cell-Matrix Research. In mice with tumors, researchers found,
tumor growth showed a substantial decrease over three weeks when
SMURF2 was removed along with MEK inhibitors. However, when
researchers reduced the level of SMURF2 in the melanoma cancer
cells, then treated the tumor with the MEK inhibitor, they found
a 100-fold increase in the sensitivity of the cells to the drug.
Researchers concluded