UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF Vav3 IN MELANOMA

NAHUEL CESATTI LALUCE; MACARENA MAMBERTO; LUCIANO ANSELMINO; FLORENCIA MALIZIA; MAURICIO MENACHO MÁRQUEZ

Congreso; REUNIÓN CONJUNTA SAIC SAI&FAIC SAFIS 2022; 2022

At present, melanoma is the skin cancer type with the poorestprognosis. A deeper understanding at molecular level of this disease may hold the key to improving its treatment. Vav proteinsare guanosine nucleotide exchange factors (GEFs) which activate-principally- Rho-Rac GTPases. This family is involved in severalprocesses linked to tumoral and metastasis development. As GEFs,they normally are considered as protumorigenic proteins. Our teamis focused on characterizing the role of these proteins in cancer.Previously, we found an unexpectedly antagonistic role betweenVav2 and Vav3 in the context of melanoma. Through a bioinformatic approach, we found that Vav3 has the highest expression levelsamong Vav proteins in normal skin and that expression decreas-