Electrophoretic fluorescence used to seek melanoma biomarkers

Biomarkers for malignant melanoma have been investigated using electrophoretic fluorescence in response to the need to understand more about the condition.

Researchers from Tianjin Medical University and Tianjen Children's Hospital in China explain in the Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research that high incidences of malignant melanoma have created a need for more detailed understanding of melanoma metastasis.

This, they write, is the most formidable problem in a form of neoplasm that continues to occur at a high worldwide incidence rate.

Using electrophoresis, they were able to use fluorescence of cyanine dyes to study multiple samples in a single two-dimensional gel.

They identified vimentin, a cytoskeleton structural protein, as both a biomarker for melanoma and also as a clinical predictor for hematogenous metastasis.

The Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research is the official periodical of the Regina Elena National Cancer Institute, providing an online forum for oncology findings from clinical and translational work.