Assessment of Autophagy in Tumor Cells of Human Skin Melanoma of Different Stages

• Published in: Bulletin of experimental biology and medicine Vol. 176; no. 3; pp. 376 - 381
• Main Authors: Taskaeva, Yu.S., Shatruk, A. Yu, Lomakin, A. I., Bgatova, N. P., Fursov, S. A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 2024; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Adapter proteins; Autophagy; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Carcinogenesis; Cell Biology; Cellular biology; Chemotherapy; Humans; Internal Medicine; Laboratory Medicine; Lymph nodes; Lymphatic system; Melanoma; Melanoma - metabolism; Metastases; Metastasis; Oncology; Pathogenesis; Pathology; Phagosomes; Skin cancer; Skin Neoplasms - pathology; Software; Transmission electron microscopy; Tumor cells; Tumors; electron microscopy; autophagy; skin melanoma; ultrastructure
• ISSN: 0007-4888; 1573-8221
• DOI: 10.1007/s10517-024-06027-w

High levels of autophagy can increase the viability of tumor cells as well as their resistance to chemotherapy. Evaluation of the dynamics of autophagy processes at different stages of carcinogenesis can extend our understanding of melanoma pathogenesis to develop new therapeutic approaches. We performed a comparative study of tumor cell autophagy in stages II and III human skin melanoma. Tumor cells were characterized by high content of structures associated with autophagy (autophagosomes and autolysosomes). In stage III melanoma characterized by the presence of regional metastases in the lymph nodes, tumor cells showed higher expression of the autophagy marker protein LC3beta in comparison with stage II melanoma cells, which can indicate the involvement of autophagy processes in tumor progression and the formation of metastases in the lymph nodes.