Collagen abundance controls melanoma phenotypes through lineage-specific microenvironment sensing.

ABSTRACT: Despite the general focus on an invasive and de-differentiated phenotype as main driver of cancer metastasis, in melanoma patients many metastatic lesions display a high degree of pigmentation, indicative for a differentiated phenotype. Indeed, studies in mice and fish show that melanoma cells switch to a differentiated phenotype at secondary sites, possibly because in melanoma differentiation is closely linked to proliferation through the lineage-specific transcriptional master regulator MITF. Importantly, while a lot of effort has gone into identifying factors that induce the de-differentiated/invasive phenotype, it is not well understood how the switch to the differentiated/proliferative phenotype is controlled. We identify collagen as a contributor to this switch. We demonstrate that c

SUBMITTER: Miskolczi Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5992128 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature