Study gives new insight into protein that keeps skin cancer in check

Tag : light skin
Xiao-Jing Wang and colleagues from the university provided the newinsights by analysing human skin cancer tissue and a mouse model ofskin cancer.

In the study, human squamous cell skin cancer samples were found tofrequently lose expression of Smad2.

In particular, Smad2 expression was lost in all samplescharacterized as 'poorly differentiated' (which means they hadprogressed to become aggressive tumours).

Consistent with this, mice lacking Smad2 in cells of the skin knownas keratinocytes developed chemically induced skin cancer morerapidly than normal mice, and the cancers were all characterized as'poorly differentiated'.

The mouse cancers also underwent a process known asepithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and this was found tocontribute to the accelerated progression of the skin cancer to anaggressive form.

These data identify Smad2 as a suppressor of skin cancerdevelopment and progression to an aggressive form, and futurestudies will investigate in more detail the mechanisms underlyingthe role of Smad2 loss in human skin cancer progression.
--- ANI