Better approach to treating deadly melanoma identified by scientists

19 Dec 2012 Researchers funded by Cancer Research UK have been looking at why new drugs called "MEK inhibitors”, which are currently being tested in clinical trials, aren't as effective at killing cancer cells as they should be. They discovered that MITF - a protein that helps cells to produce pigment but also helps melanoma cells to grow and survive - is able to provide cancer cells with a resistance to MEK inhibitors. Claudia Wellbrock and her team at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell-Matrix Research compared human melanoma cells that respond to the drug to cells that don't. They discovered that the cells that didn't respond to the drug contained higher levels of the protein SMURF2. The researchers reduced the level of SMURF2 in the melanoma cancer cells and then treated the tumour with the MEK inhibitor. They found a 100 fold increase in the sensitivity of the cells to the drug. It appears that removing SMURF2 radically decreases the level of MITF in melanoma cells, making the MEK inhibitor a lot more powerful.