Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0677930 (primary tumor)
 20,210 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Human melanoma synthesizes a large quantity of gangliosides, glycosphingolipids containing sialic acid. The authors previously have demonstrated that the ganglioside profile differs among individual melanomas and is widely heterogeneous. In the current study, a retrospective study was performed to compare the relationship between the quantity of five major gangliosides of human melanoma (GM3, GM2, GD3, GD2, and alkali-labile ganglioside) and nine clinical factors (sex, age, site, stage, tumor size, pigmentation, histopathologic type of primary tumor, chemosensitivity, and prognosis). Melanoma specimens studied were obtained from patients of our clinic and included 52 biopsy specimens and 28 cultured cell lines. Analysis of melanoma biopsy specimens have shown a differential ganglioside expression among different sites of tumor, pigmentation, and histopathologic types. Results of cultured melanoma cell lines differed from those of biopsy specimens, but ganglioside expression also differed among the site of tumor, tumor size, histopathologic types, and chemosensitivity. GM3 positively correlated with a good prognosis in both biopsy and cultured melanomas.
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PMID:Gangliosides of human melanoma. 291 20

In the solid tumor the microenvironment is the space limited by the basement membrane of the microvessels and the neoplastic cells membrane. It includes the stroma and a liquid phase, the tumor interstitial fluid (TIF). We developed a method to sample TIF in vivo and found it rich in prostaglandins. In the rabbit cornea PGE1 induces neovascularization and acts as an angiogenesis factor. Before angiogenesis appears the ganglioside content of the cornea doubles with sharp reduction of the GM3/GD3 ratio. These gangliosides are not angiogenic but they influence the endothelial cell behavior. In particular when the PGE1 dose is insufficient to induce angiogenesis, enrichment of corneal tissue with GD3 or GM1 stimulates angiogenesis. However, when the corneal tissue is enriched with GM3, doses of PGE1, normally angiogenic fail to do so. The same was observed when bFGF substituted PGE1 as an angiogenesis trigger. The gangliosides tested acted as modulators of the angiogenic response by promoting the angiogenic capacity of molecules, such as PGE1 or bFGF, normally present in the tissue microenvironment. Several neoplastic cells, especially melanomas, shed gangliosides in the microenvironment. Their modulatory effect on angiogenesis may influence metastatic and/or primary tumor growth.
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PMID:Prostaglandins and gangliosides of tumor microenvironment: their role in angiogenesis. 754 24

The glycosphingolipid patterns were analyzed on two clones derived from a human melanoma cell line and selected for their respectively high and low metastatic ability in immunosuppressed newborn rats. Conversely to the weakly metastatic cells which exhibited a pattern similar to that of the parental cell line, highly metastatic human melanoma cells appeared to be deficient in ganglioside biosynthesis. An accumulation of lactosylceramide was found in the latter cells, with low amounts of GM3 as the only ganglioside detected and a fourfold decreased activity of GM3 synthase (EC 2.4.99.9). After subcutaneous injection of metastatic cells in newborn rats, the cells proliferating in the tumor induced at the injection site re-expressed the four common gangliosides of melanoma: GM3, GM2, GD3 and GD2, whereas the cells growing in the lungs as metastatic nodules were deficient in ganglioside synthesis and showed an accumulation of lactosylceramide. Taken together, our results suggest that the human melanoma cells which are able to escape from the primary tumor and invade the lungs have an impaired ganglioside biosynthesis with a deficient GM3 synthase.
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PMID:Deficiency of ganglioside biosynthesis in metastatic human melanoma cells: relevance of CMP-NeuAc:LacCer alpha 2-3 sialyltransferase (GM3 synthase). 772 Aug 64