Cutaneous melanoma is an aggressive tumor; its incidence has been reported to increase fast in the past decades. Melanoma is a heterogeneous tumor, with most patients harboring mutations in the BRAF or NRAS oncogenes, leading to the overactivation of the MAPK/ERK and PI3K/Akt pathways. The current therapeutic approaches are based on therapies targeting mutated BRAF and the downstream pathway, and on monoclonal antibodies against the immune checkpoint blockade. However, treatment resistance and side effects are common events of these therapeutic strategies. Increasing evidence supports that melanoma is a hormone-related cancer. Melanoma incidence is higher in males than in females, and females have a significant survival advantage over men. Estrogens exert their effects through estrogen receptors (ERα and ERβ) that affect cancer growth in an opposite way: ERα is associated with a proliferative action and ERβ with an anticancer effect. ERβ is the predominant ER in melanoma, and its expression decreases in melanoma progression, supporting its role as a tumor suppressor. Thus, ERβ is now considered as an effective molecular target for melanoma treatment. 17β-estradiol was reported to inhibit melanoma cells proliferation; however, clinical trials did not provide the expected survival benefits. In vitro studies demonstrate that ERβ ligands inhibit the proliferation of melanoma cells harboring the NRAS (but not the BRAF) mutation, suggesting that ERβ activation might impair melanoma development through the inhibition of the PI3K/Akt pathway. These data suggest that ERβ agonists might be considered as an effective treatment strategy, in combination with MAPK inhibitors, for NRAS mutant melanomas. In an era of personalized medicine, pretreatment evaluation of the expression of ER isoforms together with the concurrent oncogenic mutations should be considered before selecting the most appropriate therapeutic intervention. Natural compounds that specifically bind to ERβ have been identified. These phytoestrogens decrease the proliferation of melanoma cells. Importantly, these effects are unrelated to the oncogenic mutations of melanomas, suggesting that, in addition to their ERβ activating function, these compounds might impair melanoma development through additional mechanisms. A better identification of the role of ERβ in melanoma development will help increase the therapeutic options for this aggressive pathology.

Malignant melanoma is the leading cause of death from skin cancer. Drug toxicity and resistance represent a serious challange for melanoma treatments. Evidence demonstrates that natural compounds may play a crucial role in cancer prevention, growth and progression. Vitamin E tocotrienols (TT) were shown to possess antitumor activity. Here, we analyzed the effects of δ-TT on melanoma cell growth and the involvement of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress in this activity. The experiments were performed on human melanoma cell lines, BLM and A375. δ-TT exerted a significant proapoptotic effect on both cell lines, involving the intrinsic apoptosis pathway; importantly, this compound did not affect the viability of normal human melanocytes. In melanoma cells, δ-TT exerted its antitumor effect through activation of the PERK/p-eIF2α/ATF4/CHOP, IRE1α and caspase-4 ER stress-related branches. Salubrinal, an inhibitor of the ER stress, counteracted the cytotoxic activity of δ-TT. In vivo experiments performed in nude mice bearing A375 xenografts evidenced that δ-TT reduces tumor volume and tumor mass; importantly, tumor progression was significantly delayed by δ-TT treatment. In conclusion, δ-TT exerts a proapoptotic activity on melanoma cells, through activation of the ER stress-related pathways. δ-TT might represent an effective option for novel chemopreventive/therapeutic strategies for melanoma.

BackgroundCutaneous melanoma is an aggressive malignancy; its incidence is increasing worldwide and its prognosis remains poor. Clinical observations indicate that estrogen receptor β (ERβ) is expressed in melanoma tissues and its expression decreases with tumor progression, suggesting its tumor suppressive function. These experiments were performed to investigate the effects of ERβ activation on melanoma cell growth.Methods and ResultsProtein expression was analyzed by Western blot and immunofluorescence assays. Cell proliferation was assessed by counting the cells by hemocytometer. ERβ transcriptional activity was evaluated by gene reporter assay. Global DNA methylation was analyzed by restriction enzyme assay and ERβ isoforms were identified by qRT-PCR. We demonstrated that ERβ is expressed in a panel of human melanoma cell lines (BLM, WM115, A375, WM1552). In BLM (NRAS-mutant) cells, ERβ agonists significantly and specifically inhibited cell proliferation. ERβ activation triggered its cytoplasmic-to-nuclear translocation and transcriptional activity. Moreover, the antiproliferative activity of ERβ agonists was associated with an altered expression of G1-S transition-related proteins. In these cells, global DNA was found to be hypomethylated when compared to normal melanocytes; this DNA hypomethylation status was reverted by ERβ activation. ERβ agonists also decreased the proliferation of WM115 (BRAF V600D-mutant) cells, while they failed to reduce the growth of A375 and WM1552 (BRAF V600E-mutant) cells. Finally, we could observe that ERβ isoforms are expressed at different levels in the various cell lines. Specific oncogenic mutations or differential expression of receptor isoforms might be responsible for the different responses of cell lines to ERβ agonists.ConclusionsOur results demonstrate that ERβ is expressed in melanoma cell lines and that ERβ agonists differentially regulate the proliferation of these cells. These data confirm the notion that melanoma is a heterogeneous tumor and that genetic profiling is mandatory for the development of effective personalized therapeutic approaches for melanoma patients.

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Epigenetics represents the way by which the environment is able to program the genome; there are three main levels of epigenetic control on genome: DNA methylation, post-translational histone modification and microRNA expression. The term Epigenetics has been widened by NIH to include “both heritable changes in gene activity and expression but also stable, long-term alterations in the transcriptional potential of a cell that are not necessarily heritable.” These changes might be produced mostly by the early life environment and might affect health influencing the susceptibility to develop diseases, from cancer to mental disorder, during the entire life span. The most studied environmental influences acting on epigenome are diet, infections, wasting, child care, smoking and environmental pollutants, in particular endocrine disrupters (EDs). These are environmental xenobiotics able to interfere with the normal development of the male and female reproductive systems of wildlife, of experimental animals and possibly of humans, disrupting the normal reproductive functions. Data from literature indicate that EDs can act at different levels of epigenetic control, in some cases transgenerationally, in particular when the exposure to these compounds occurs during the prenatal and earliest period of life. Some of the best characterized EDs will be considered in this review. Among the EDs, vinclozolin (VZ), and methoxychlor (MXC) promote epigenetic transgenerational effects. Polychlorinated biphenils (PCBs), the most widespread environmental EDs, affect histone post-translational modifications in a dimorphic way, possibly as the result of an alteration of gene expression of the enzymes involved in histone modification, as the demethylase Jarid1b, an enzyme also involved in regulating the interaction of androgens with their receptor.