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Obesity and melanoma: Exploring molecular links
Author(s) -
Chen Jiezhong,
Chi Mengna,
Chen Chen,
Zhang Xu Dong
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of cellular biochemistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.028
H-Index - 165
eISSN - 1097-4644
pISSN - 0730-2312
DOI - 10.1002/jcb.24549
Subject(s) - melanoma , mapk/erk pathway , pi3k/akt/mtor pathway , protein kinase b , cancer research , carcinogenesis , signal transduction , malignant transformation , obesity , incidence (geometry) , signal pathway , medicine , stat3 , cancer , biology , bioinformatics , microbiology and biotechnology , physics , optics
Obesity is now a major health problem due to its rapidly increasing incidence worldwide and severe consequences. Among many conditions associated with obesity are some cancers including melanoma. Both genetic defects and environmental risk factors are involved in the carcinogenesis of melanoma. Activation of multiple signal pathways such as the PI3K/Akt and MAPK pathways are necessary for the initiation of melanoma. Activation of the MAPK pathway as a result of activating mutations in BRAF is commonly seen in melanoma though it alone is not sufficient to cause malignant transformation of melanocytes. Obesity can result in the activation of many signal pathways including PI3K/Akt, MAPK, and STAT3. The activation of these pathways may have a synergistic effect with the genetic defects thereby increasing the incidence of melanoma. J. Cell. Biochem. 114: 1955–1961, 2013. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.