Low expression of pro-apoptotic proteins Bax, Bak and Smac indicates prolonged progression-free survival in chemotherapy-treated metastatic melanoma.

ABSTRACT: Despite the introduction of novel targeted therapies, chemotherapy still remains the primary treatment for metastatic melanoma in poorly funded healthcare environments or in case of disease relapse, with no reliable molecular markers for progression-free survival (PFS) available. As chemotherapy primarily eliminates cancer cells by apoptosis, we here evaluated if the expression of key apoptosis regulators (Bax, Bak, Bcl-2, Bcl-xL, Smac, Procaspase-9, Apaf-1, Procaspase-3 and XIAP) allows prognosticating PFS in stage III/IV melanoma patients. Following antibody validation, marker expression was determined by automated and manual scoring of immunohistochemically stained tissue microarrays (TMAs) constructed from treatment-naive metastatic melanoma biopsies. Interestingly and counter-intuitiv

SUBMITTER: Gutta C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7018795 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature