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Does melanoma metastasis recapitulate the embryonic neural crest invasion program?
Author(s) -
Kulesa Paul M,
Morrison Jason,
Ytheir Sylvain,
Benoit Morgan,
Steen Joseph,
Bailey Caleb M
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.25.1_supplement.11.3
Subject(s) - neural crest , embryonic stem cell , biology , melanoma , population , microbiology and biotechnology , induced pluripotent stem cell , cancer research , embryo , genetics , medicine , environmental health , gene
Melanocytes derive from a highly invasive and pluripotent embryonic cell population called the neural crest. It has been proposed that melanocytes might be inherently predisposed to having invasive and metastatic attributes following neoplastic transformation as a result of their embryonic differentiation program. Metastatic melanoma cells are highly invasive and typically exhibit a high degree of plasticity, similar to their neural crest progenitors, but whether these cells recapitulate an embryonic invasion program related to their ancestral neural crest is unclear. We have shown that metastatic melanoma cells transplanted into the chick embryonic neural crest microenvironment invade into the host tissue, migrate along host neural crest cell migratory pathways, do not reform tumors, and can potentially be reprogrammed to a neural‐crest‐cell‐like phenotype (Kulesa et al., 2006; Hendrix et al., 2007; Kasemeier‐Kulesa et al., 2008). Here, we use the chick embryo neural crest microenvironment, combined with 2‐photon photoactivation cell labeling and time‐lapse microscopy, as a model to address the predisposition hypothesis in more detail. This work was supported by CA121205 from the NIH/NCI and the Stowers Institute for Medical Research