Possible Melanoma Treatment? SOX9 Role

SOX9 Protein Function and Possible Melanoma Treatment

Researchers have shown, in a new study just released, that a specific protein plays an important role in inhibiting the development and spread of melanoma tumors in mice and in human skin models. SOX9 is a promising new target for melanoma therapies.

The protein called SOX9 has been identified by researchers from the Laboratory of Cell Biology in NCI’s Center for Cancer Research. SOX9 inhibits both melanoma cell proliferation and restores the sensitivity of melanoma cells to the chemotherapy drug retinoic acid. The ability to increase sensitivity to retinoic acid by stimulating SOX9 expression could lead to new approaches for treating melanoma and other cancers. The results were published March 9 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

In research comparison the SOX9 was found in all of the normal skin samples. However, the protein was weakly expressed or missing in most of the nevi, in more than 90 percent of the primary tumors, and in all of the metastatic tumors. When gene transfer was used by researchers to restore SOX9 expression to melanoma cells grown in culture, the protein caused cell cycle arrest (the cancerous cells stopped dividing).

Read the full bulletin on this new target for a possible melanoma treatment:
http://www.cancer.gov/ncicancerbulletin/031009/page2