Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: EC:1.10.3.1 (tyrosinase)
 9,065 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

In advanced stages of malignant melanoma (MM), metastases to the CNS are frequently observed. Few results are available on trophic factors and immunological features involved in the process of invasion and adhesion of circulating metastatic cells into the CNS. A direct comparison of remote metastases found in different locations of the same patient might help to identify such properties. For this purpose, we screened a panel of MM cell cultures, which had been established from patients with surgically removed MM lesions of the CNS, for expression and regulation of immunorelevant molecules. The results were compared with standard controls and cultures established from non-CNS metastatic lesions of the same patients. No significant differences were observed for expression of HLA-I, HLA-II, ICAM-1 and the melanoma-associated antigens Mage-3, MelanA and tyrosinase. Constitutive expression of the neuronal cell adhesion molecule (NCAM) was found in all CNS-derived samples and in fewer than 50% of non-CNS derived cultures. IFN-gamma was found to have a weak up-regulating effect in all non-CNS-derived cultures, except normal melanocytes. However, in 6/7 CNS-derived cultures, pre-treatment with IFN-gamma reduced expression of NCAM to 28% to 77% of the level in untreated cultures. The presence and regulation of NCAM differs between MM cells derived from CNS metastases and non-CNS-derived melanocytic cells. Thus, NCAM might be a candidate immunoregulating molecule involved in the formation of CNS metastases of MM.
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PMID:Inverse regulation of neuronal cellular adhesion molecule (NCAM) by IFN-gamma in melanoma cell cultures established from CNS lesions. 1044 20

Melanoma frequently metastasizes to the central nervous system (CNS). The diagnosis of CNS metastases typically is made following the onset of clinical symptoms. Thus, more sensitive diagnostic approaches are needed to identify subclinical CNS metastases. Currently, standard cytologic analysis of the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is limited by its poor sensitivity. A more sensitive assay was therefore developed using multiple reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) markers. CSF was collected and assessed by RT-PCR for three known melanoma-associated markers (MAGE-3, MART-1, and tyrosinase) to detect occult metastatic melanoma cells in the CSF of 37 American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) stage IV melanoma patients. Cytologic analysis of CSF was performed on all patients, and immunohistochemistry (IHC) analysis was performed on 33 CSF samples using anti-S100 and anti-HMB-45 antibodies. Only one patient (3%) had tumor-positive CSF cytology and IHC upon entry into the study, whereas 12 patients (32%) were positive for at least one RT-PCR marker. The correlation between CSF RT-PCR positivity of MART-1 and/or MAGE-3 and the development of CNS metastases at 3 mo was significant (p = 0.04). Fifteen of 37 patients (41%) had either positive MRI and/or positive RT-PCR results. Multimarker RT-PCR is more informative and sensitive than cytology/IHC in assessing the CSF of melanoma patients.
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PMID:Molecular detection of metastatic melanoma cells in cerebrospinal fluid in melanoma patients. 1151 19