Melanoma Metastasis

1998/05/01 Bidaurrazaga, Joseba Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Biologia
• Medikuntza

They are responsible for melanocytes of the dark color that appears on the skin. These cells produce the pigment carried by skin cells, melanin. Often these cells are concentrated in small areas of the skin forming a nevus, that is, a ghost. The urine sometimes increases and then becomes worrying because from here melanoma can occur, that is, cancer.

In recent years there have been numerous advances in the treatment of cancer, extending the survival of patients and, in many cases, completely completing the disease. However, there are many types of cancer, some more serious than others, and not only that, depending on when the cancer is diagnosed, the same type of tumor may have different behaviors; the importance of early diagnosis resides here.

One of the most common tumors is melanoma, and as in other malignancies, they tend to have unpredictable metastasis behavior that malign prognosis, without an effective method of diagnosis or therapy. When the tumor is diagnosed for the first time, it can already be dispersed by the body, and although the injury of the first is complete, it can appear somewhere else in the body, often generating an unfortunate metastasis, ultimately, metastasis.

In cancer research, medicine uses different approaches, one of which is the study of tumor biology, that is,
the behavior of the cells that compose it.

And above all the factors that can affect the development of metastases in melanomas. The cells that form melanoma must have several abilities to form metastases: first, the ability to remove the tumor, the ability to survive in circulation, lymph or blood circulation, the ability to last, the ability to reach the site of metastasis and its development. The research analyzes some phenomena that occur in the following processes:

• to attach metastatic cells to the endothelium of hepatic sinusoids. When tumor cells spread through the blood vessels, they often stop in the smaller blood vessels of the liver, the sinusoids, and cause metastasis in them.
• cell resistance metastases to active hepatic oxygen metabolites. Some liver cells can produce oxygenated water and other active oxygenated substances capable of killing them.
• migration and invasion of metastatic cells. Tumor cells must be able to move to metastasize.
• neoangiogenesis in liver metastases. Tumors, local cells, need food to stay, which comes from the blood. Therefore, as tumor tissue grows, blood vessels present in surrounding tissues must provide new vessels for the tumor (neoangiogenesis).
• effect of interleukin-I regulation (in transcription and after transcription) on the liver metastasis capacity of melanoma B16. Communication between cells is necessary to survive. Cells, among other mechanisms, use special molecules for the exchange of messages, some of them interleukins, including interleukin-1.

The study of the biological perspective takes into account, on the one hand, the tumor cells (their harmful) and on the other, the cells around the tumor. Normal cells around or inside the tumor may benefit the tumor. Other times they are able to kill tumor cells. The study of tumor biology is fundamental in the design of strategies to combat them, and this research group works on it.

• Project title: Study of molecular mediators of liver metastases of melanomas.
• Project objective: Clarify the role of adhesive molecules, chemotactic factors and, above all, the mediators of inflammation in metastases of melanomic cells.
• Director: F. Free announcement
• Working team: J. Bidaurrazaga, J. Anasagasti, L. Mendoza, J. Martin, M. García
• Department: Cell Biology and Morphological Sciences
• Faculty: Medicine and Dentistry