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| Author(s): |
Marco Antonio Carvalho
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Master's Dissertation |
| Press: | Campinas, SP. |
| Institution: | Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Faculdade de Odontologia de Piracicaba |
| Defense date: | 2007-02-26 |
| Examining board members: |
Edgard Graner;
Carlos Alberto de Souza Costa;
Márcio Ajudarte Lopes
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| Advisor: | Edgard Graner |
| Abstract | |
Malignant melanoma is a cancer with poor prognosis due to its high metastatic potential and resistance to the existing chemotherapeutic agents. Fatty acid synthase is a metabolic enzyme with molecular mass of 250 kDa responsible for the endogenous biosynthesis of fatty acids. FAS converts acetyl-CoA and malonyl-CoA in the long chain fatty acid palmitate. FAS activity is downregulated in most normal human tissues except liver, adipose tissue, fetal lung and lacting breast. On the other hand, FAS is overexpressed in several malignant neoplasms, including malignant melanoma. For some tumors, FAS overexpression has been associated with a poor prognosis. Recently, the new inhibitor of FAS activity Orlistat was hown to inhibit the proliferation of prostate and breast cancer cell lines and the growth of their xenograft tumors. In this work we studied the effects of FAS inhibition in the B16F10 melanoma cell line and in a animal model for melanoma metastasis. B16F10 murine melanoma cells were intraperitoneally injected in 40 mice and an inhibition of 50% in the number of mediastinal lymph node metastasis was observed in the Orlistat treated group. The inhibition of FAS was confirmed by ¿Oil Red O¿ staining in frozen tissue sections. We also found that Orlistat promoted apoptosis and inhibited the proliferation of B16F10 cells by blocking cell cycle progression, as demonstrated by flow cytometry experiments. Western blotting analysis of protein extracts obtained from Orlistat-treated cells revealed overexpression of p27Kip1 and downregulation of Skp2. In conclusion, the present animal model is useful for the study of drugs with antitumoral effect like Orlistat. The inhibition of FAS has an important role on the metastatic spread of melanoma in C57BL6 mice by blocking the proliferation and inducing apoptosis in B16F10 cells. In addition, the inhibition of FAS by Orlistat represents a new approach in order to develop drugs for melanoma chemotherapy (AU) | |