The EphB4 receptor promotes the growth of melanoma cells expressing the ephrin-B2 ligand.

NAI-YING YANG; PABLO LOPEZ BERGAMI; JAMES GOYDOS; DANA YIP; AMEAE WALKER; ELENA PASQUALE; IRYNA ETHELL

PIGMENT CELL & MELANOMA RESEARCH

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Año: 2010 vol. 23 p. 684 - 687

1755-1471

Cutaneous melanoma is the most aggressive form of skin cancer and several families of receptor tyrosine kinases have been implicated in its development and progression, including the Eph receptor family (Hess et al., 2007; Smalley et al., 2009). Among Eph receptors, EphA2 has been most extensively studied in melanoma and linked to increased malignancy (Hess et al.,2007; Margaryan et al., 2009). The roles of other Eph receptors in melanoma progression, however, have not been extensively characterized. A recent study has shown that overexpression of EphB4 in murine B16 melanoma cells (which do not express the preferred EphB4 ligand, ephrin-B2) decreases the survival of ephrin-B2-positive tumor endothelial cells, suggesting thatEphB4 may function as a tumor suppressor in melanoma by inhibiting angiogenesis (Huang et al., 2007). However, the widespread expression EphB4 in human cancers (Pasquale, 2010), including melanomas , suggests a possible positive role in tumor progression.