Potential New Targets to Treat Melanoma.

• Position: SKIN CANCER

People with light skin tones are far more likely to develop melanoma skin cancer than people with dark skin tones. This large disparity results from far more than can be explained by the UV protective effects of melanin pigment, and results in large part from the melanin precursor DOPA, and its ability to inhibit CHRM1, according to research from the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine. The researchers also found that inhibiting FOXM1, a transcription factor downstream of CHRM1, inhibits melanoma.

These findings highlight two new potential therapeutic targets, and show that it may be possible to re-purpose the main medicine for Parkinson's disease, levodopa, to inhibit melanoma. The study is published in Science Advances.

"For decades, dermatologists and melanoma researchers thought that the particular susceptibility to melanoma in lightly pigmented skin resulted from a relative lack of protection against UV damage from the sun. This work shows that the biology is far more...