The biodiversity of this planet is in peril; in fact some biologists state we’re in the midst of an extinction event. The fact of the matter is the number of species on this planet is decreasing so rapidly that soon, all that will be left are humans, our livestock, mosquitoes, cockroaches, a billion strains of viruses, and ornamental lawn grasses.
And that would be an incredible loss for medicine because researchers have discovered a number of plants and animal species have the potential to aid in the fight against all kinds of diseases, including melanoma.
I wrote before that melanoma with BRAF mutations can be treated with BRAF-inhibitor drugs. But the problem with these types of drugs is that some patients’ melanoma cells develop resistance during the course of treatment.
With an eye towards developing novel approaches to treating melanoma, researchers from the University of California San Diego and the University of Sao Paolo who previously investigated a marine bacterium called Serinicoccus, turned their attention to a chemical it produces, known as Seriniquinone. Their research showed that Seriniquinone “demonstrated potent activity and selectivity toward melanoma cell lines”.
Backstory so the rest of the post makes sense… Dermcidin is a protein which encoded in the human DCD gene. Every time you sweat, you also secrete this protein. Dermcidin has been the focus of research for years as it has been shown to possess anti-microbial properties. Basically, it’s like your immune system’s way of killing any errant bacterial on your skin. And that should be awesome, right? Yay, protecting us from bacterial infection! But dermcidin has a darker side that researchers have recently uncovered. This protein has been associated with melanoma and breast cancer tumors. Scientists believe dermcidin may help cancer tumor cells proliferate and protect those cells from the immune system. That, as a former colleague of mine would say with understated gravitas, is suboptimal.
So getting back to Seriniquinone, the team from UC San Diego and University of Sao Paolo decided to see what this chemical would do against melanoma cells in a test tube. And their results were that not only did it induce cell death (which is exactly what you want melanoma cells to do – die and die quickly), but it also seems to be targeting dermcidin by binding with it. And as we know from previous science lessons here on the blog, when a protein is bound by another agent, it blocks the action of that protein. And in this case, Seriniquinone blocked the dermcidin from giving a boost to spreading those cancer cells.
Now obviously, something working in a test tube is not the exact same thing as something working in the human body. But it does provide a very intriguing avenue for developing therapies that can eventually be tested in animal and human subjects.
Who knows, maybe this exploration will lead to great advances against melanoma and it all comes from a somewhat rare marine bacterial species. Wouldn’t it be a shame if in the process of killing off the rhinos, the bees, and the sharks, we also ended up killing off the (potentially) beneficial Serinicoccus?