Targeting the Undifferentiated State of Cancer
May 2018
in “
Cancer Cell
”
TLDR Less differentiated melanoma cells are more vulnerable to a type of cell death, which could improve cancer treatments.
Tsoi et al. identified four differentiation states in melanoma and showed that melanoma cells develop drug resistance through a stepwise dedifferentiation process, making them susceptible to ferroptotic cell death-inducing compounds. Less differentiated melanoma cells were more vulnerable to ferroptosis, an iron-dependent, non-apoptotic cell death, due to low MITF levels. The study suggested that targeting the dedifferentiated state with ferroptosis inducers could be a potential therapeutic strategy for treatment-resistant melanoma.
