A new treatment approach for Malignant Melanoma basing on analysis of expression pattern of homeobox genes

HOX基因是控制形态发生的主基因。在人类中，HOX基因在不同的染色体上形成4个簇，由9至11个HOX基因（总共39个基因）组成。我们假设HOX基因的异常表达与黑色素瘤的发展和随后的进展有关，并且39个HOX基因的表达模式决定了黑色素瘤生长的部位。应用实时荧光定量PCR技术对15例皮肤黑色素瘤和7例色素痣组织中39个HOX基因的表达水平进行了定量分析。我们发现HOXA 11、A13、B9、D12和D13在黑色素瘤中的表达水平高于色素痣，HOXA 11、B2和C13在pT4黑色素瘤和pT1至pT3黑色素瘤中的表达水平有显著差异。其中HOXA 1、A2、C4和B13在有远处转移的黑色素瘤中的表达明显高于无远处转移的黑色素瘤，但HOX基因的表达与黑色素瘤的生长部位无关。这些结果表明，某些特异性HOX基因的异常表达与黑色素瘤的发生和转移有关，但与黑色素瘤的发生部位无关。

HOX genes act as master genes to control morphogenesis. In human, HOX genes form 4 clusters composing 9 to 11 HOX genes (39 genes in total) on different chromosomes. We hypothesized that aberrant expression of HOX genes was associated with development and subsequent progression of melanoma and that the 39 HOX gene expression pattern determined the sites where melanoma grew. The expression levels of 39 HOX genes in 15 human cutaneous melanoma specimens and 7 nevus pigmentosus specimens were quantified by a comprehensive analysis system based on the real-time RT-PCR method. We found that the expression levels of HOXA11,A13,B9,D12 and D13 in melanoma were higher than those in nevus pigmentosus and that the expression levels of HOXA11, B2 and C13 were significantly different between pT4 melanoma and pT1 to pT3 melanoma. It was most notable that the expression levels of HOXA1,A2,C4 and B13 in melanoma with distant metastasis were higher than those in melanoma without it. On the other hand, we found no relationship between HOX genes expression patterns and the growing sites of melanoma. These results indicated that the misexpressions of some specific HOX genes were implicated in melanoma genesis and metastasis but had no linkage with melanoma sites.And we did similar experiment of PAX genes which are also Homeobox genes.