Reprogramming human A375 amelanotic melanoma cells by catalase overexpression: Reversion or promotion of malignancy by inducing melanogenesis or metastasis.

// Candelaria Bracalente 1, 2 , Noelia Salguero 1 , Cintia Notcovich 1 , Carolina B. Muller 3 , Leonardo L. da Motta 3 , Fabio Klamt 3 , Irene L. Ibanez 1, 2 , Hebe Duran 1, 2, 4 1 Departamento de Micro y Nanotecnologia, Comision Nacional de Energia Atomica, San Martin, Buenos Aires, B1650KNA, Argentina 2 Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnologicas, Buenos Aires, C1033AAJ, Argentina 3 Laboratorio de Bioquimica Celular, Departamento de Bioquimica, Instituto de Ciencias Basicas da Saude, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, 90035 003, Brasil 4 Escuela de Ciencia y Tecnologia, Universidad Nacional de San Martin, San Martin, Buenos Aires, B1650HMP, Argentina Correspondence to: Hebe Duran, email: hduran@cnea.gov.ar Keywords: melanoma, catalase, ROS, melanogenesis and metastasis Received: October 27, 2015      Accepted: March 28, 2016      Published: May 07, 2016 ABSTRACT Advanced melanoma is the most aggressive form of skin cancer. It is highly metastatic and dysfunctional in melanogenesis; two processes that are induced by H 2 O 2 . This work presents a melanoma cell model with low levels of H 2 O 2 induced by catalase overexpression to study differentiation/dedifferentiation processes. Three clones (A7, C10 and G10) of human A375 amelanotic melanoma cells with quite distinct phenotypes were obtained. These clones faced H 2 O 2 scavenging by two main strategies. One developed by clone G10 where ROS increased. This resulted in G10 migration and metastasis associated with the increased of cofilin-1 and CAP1. The other strategy was observed in clone A7 and C10, where ROS levels were maintained reversing malignant features. Particularly, C10 was not tumorigenic, while A7 reversed the amelanotic phenotype by increasing melanin content and melanocytic differentiation markers. These clones allowed the study of potential differentiation and migration markers and its association with ROS levels in vitro and in vivo , providing a new melanoma model with different degree of malignancy.