Metastatic melanoma is characterised by metabolic abnormalities. But how aggressive tumor behaviour is altered by metabolic state remains ill understood. Researchers from Vienna in collaboration with the LBI-CR now report high-density lipoprotein (HDL) receptor SR-BI expression can predict melanoma progression in patients. The metastasis-associated epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) was perturbed by SR-BI knockdown, but not functional inhibition of its cholesterol transporting capacity. When human metastatic melanoma clinical specimens were analyzed for the abundance of SR-BI and STAT5 protein, a positive correlation was found and loss of SR-BI resulted in decreased glycosylation, reduced DNA binding and target gene expression of STAT5. Implications: High SR-BI expression in melanoma is linked with increased cellular glycosylation and hence is essential for a metastasis specific expression signature.
This report was now published in the journal Molecular Cancer Research