Roles of p38 α and p38β mitogen‑activated protein kinase isoforms in human malignant melanoma A375 cells.

Roles of p38α and p38β mitogen‑activated protein kinase isoforms in human malignant melanoma A375 cells. Int J Mol Med. 2019 Oct 24;: Authors: Wen SY, Cheng SY, Ng SC, Aneja R, Chen CJ, Huang CY, Kuo WW Abstract Skin cancer is one of the most common cancers worldwide. Melanoma accounts for ~5% of skin cancers but causes the large majority of skin cancer‑related deaths. Recent discoveries have shown that the mitogen‑activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway is critical for melanoma development and progression. Many oncogenic pathways that cause melanoma tumorigenesis have been identified, most of which are due to RAF/MEK/ERK (MAPK) pathway activation. However, the precise role of p38 remains unclear. Using specific short hairpin (sh) RNA to silence p38α and p38β, the present findings demonstrated that p38α was a crucial factor in regulating cell migration in the A375 melanoma cell line. Silencing p38α downregulated the expression of epithelial‑mesenchymal transition markers, such as matrix metallopeptidase (MMP) 2, MMP9, twist family bHLH transcription factor 1, snail family transcriptional repressor 1 and vimentin, while mesenchymal‑epithelial transition markers, such as E‑cadherin, were upregulated. Of note, the results also demonstrated that p38α silencing impaired vascular endothelial growth factor expression, which regulates tumor angiogenesis. Furthermore, p38α knockdown inhibited cell proliferation ...
Source: International Journal of Molecular Medicine - Category: Molecular Biology Authors: Tags: Int J Mol Med Source Type: research