Scientists are working on a new treaments for melanoma. Scientists have long wondered why some
skin cells developed into moles, and some skin cells develop into the deadly skin cancer, melanoma. Well, recently
US researchers have theorized that this is due to a missing protein known as IGFBP7. This naturally secreted
protein prevents cells from developing into menonoma, and this may improve treatments for melanoma, the skin cancer
most likely to be fatal.
If not caught in the early stages, melanoma can be a particularly virulent form of cancer,
spreading through the body with an efficiency that few tumours possess. It has recently been discovered that unlike
many other cancers, melanoma is born with its metastatic engines fully revved. In other words, in melanoma, when
the melanocytes--cells that protect the skin from sun damage by producing pigmentation--morph into cancer cells,
they immediately reawaken a dormant cellular process that lets them travel swiftly throughout the body.
IGFBP7 is part of our bodies natural defence against cancer, and in the case of menonoma, this
protein appears to turn off. Recently a lab test on mice was performed on melanoma cells with a
synthetic form of the protein, and the cancers actually stopped growing.
What that means is that IGFBP7 could be used as a targeted treatment, because the melanoma is
sensitive to the protein. Menonoma, a less common but most deadly skin cancer, kills close to 9,000 people in the
US every year. It is untreatable once it is the advanced state and accounts for the most deaths.
The interesting fact is, that Moles, also know as nevi are harmless, are caused by an
uncontrolled growth of melanoytes, as is melanoma. Studies have shown that a mutation in a gene called BRAF,
causes cells to multiply abnormally in both melanoma and moles, and it was by studying BRAF that they discovered
the protein IGFBP7 found the code that is responsible for this natural defence system. The interesting thing is
that this protein is secreted, therefore it can affect the cells surrounding, unlike most proteins which only work
inside of cells. It appears to communicate to the surrounding cells to ignore the BRAF mutations and tells them to
either self destruct or at least hibernate.
IGFBP7 is also sited as a potential tumour suppressor for breast cancers, lung cancers, and
prostate cancers.