THURSDAY, June 13, 2002 (HealthDayNews) -- The next time you're working on a tan, remember the latest skin cancer research: The same gene that protects your skin from too much sun also can make the worst sort of skin cancer resistant to treatment.
Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston say a certain gene known as MITF can greatly reduce the effectiveness of radiation and chemotherapy against melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.
Their findings appear in the June 14 issue of the journal Cell.
When you sunbathe, a layer of pigmented cells called melanocytes acts as a sort of natural sunscreen that helps prevent damage to your body by the sun's rays. Those dark-colored cells contain a protective mechanism that prevents them from being destroyed by solar radiation. They also contain MITF, the gene that is critical for the proper development of melanocytes.
The Dana-Farber scientists focused on MITF because they suspect it allows normal and malignant cells to escape apoptosis. Apoptosis causes suicide in a cell when its life has naturally ended. Many cancer drugs make cancer cells undergo apoptosis, because cancer cells don't die on their own.
Melanocytes, those sunscreen cells in your skin, constantly receive ultraviolet radiation from the sun. In other cells, that type of damage would cause apoptosis. But melanocytes appear to have a mechanism that neutralizes this.
The Dana-Farber team conducted a number of experiments to test MITF and its interaction with another gene called BCL2. Findings indicate that MITF regulates both cell pigmentation and survival through its actions on BCL2. And that's the two-edged sword.
While the interacton is beneficial in normal pigment cell function, it gives melanoma cancer cells super survival abilities that impede cancer treatment, according to Dr. David Fisher, one of the lead Dana-Farber researchers.
An estimated 53,600 Americans will be diagnosed with melanoma this year and about 4,700 will die from the disease, the American Cancer Society says.
More information
This advice from the Melanoma Patients' Information Page tells you how to spot suspicious changes on your skin.
And this Internet site from the town of Brookline, Mass., gives some excellent summer safe tanning tips.
