Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: EC:2.7.7.49 (reverse transcriptase)
 31,746 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

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

In this study, hyaluronan, laminin-1, tenascin-C and type VI collagen were measured in the sera of patients with stage I/II and stage IV melanoma. A significant increase in the serum levels of all four extracellular matrix proteins was found in patients with stage IV melanoma compared to healthy donors. Type VI collagen and hyaluronan serum levels were also significantly increased in stage I/II melanoma. Increased expression of the four matrix proteins was also demonstrated in melanoma cell lines using reverse transcriptase- polmerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). We suggest that tenascin-C, hyaluronan, laminin-1 and type VI collagen are involved in melanoma development and extracellular matrix remodelling during melanoma progression. This finding will be of interest in the development of serum markers for progression of malignant melanoma.
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PMID:Laminin, hyaluronan, tenascin-C and type VI collagen levels in sera from patients with malignant melanoma. 1295 Mar 43