Involvement of metabotropic glutamate receptor 1, a G protein coupled receptor, in melanoma development.
Melanoma is the aberrant proliferation of melanocytes, the cells in the skin responsible for pigment production. In the United States the current lifetime risk of melanoma development is 1 in 57 in males and 1 in 81 in females. In its early stages melanoma can be surgically removed with great success; however, advanced stages of melanoma have a high mortality rate due to the lack of responsiveness to currently available therapies. The development of animal models to be used in the studies of melanoma will provide the means for developing improved and targeted treatments for this disease. This review focuses on the recent report of a mouse melanoma model, TG-3, which has implicated the ectopic expression of the metabotropic glutamate receptor 1 (Grm1), a G protein coupled receptor (GPCR), in melanomagenesis and metastasis. The involvement of other GPCRs in cellular transformation, particularly GPCRs in melanoma biology, and signaling of Grm1 are also discussed.
Susan Lehman Cullman Laboratory for Cancer Research, Department of Chemical Biology, Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, Rutgers University, 164 Frelinghuysen Rd., Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA.
Yarí E
YE
Marín
Suzie
S
Chen
D000818:Animals; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008544:Melanocytes / Q000378:metabolism; D008545:Melanoma / Q000209:etiology / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D051379:Mice; D008822:Mice, Transgenic; D009154:Mutation; D043562:Receptors, G-Protein-Coupled / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D018094:Receptors, Metabotropic Glutamate / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000502:physiology
D043562:Receptors, G-Protein-Coupled; D018094:Receptors, Metabotropic Glutamate; C104077:metabotropic glutamate receptor type 1