Functional characterization of 3'UTR region of PHB gene in human melanomas

Abstract

Cutaneous melanoma is a epithelial tumor originated from melanocytes. This tumor represents 4% of skin malignancies and is considered an important public health problem. The high mortality rates are mainly associated with their aggressive behavior, the high possibility of metastasis and treatment resistance. Themechanisms of chemoresistance, characteristic of these tumors, are not yet completely understood and therefore the understanding of these processes will be useful to development new strategies of treatment. Previous studies from our group showed that treatment using cisplatin in human melanoma cell lines induced the accumulation of prohibitin (PHB) protein between chemoresistant cells. Prohibitin is an evolutionarily conserved proteinubiquitously expressed and involved in various cellular processes, including cell proliferation. The portion 3'UTR of PHB gene encodes a regulatory RNA that acts as tumor suppressor regardless of its protein. In addition, another study from our group showed that rare alleles originated from the SNP C/T in the 3'UTR region of PHB gene were associated with risk factors for development of melanomas among affected patients.Therefore, based on previous findings from our group and literature, this project aims to characterize the 3'UTR of PHB gene to better understand of this regulatory RNA function of in human melanomas which may be became as a potential therapeutic agent against the tumors combined or not with cisplatin treatment.