DNA Repair and Immune Response Pathways Are Deregulated in Melanocyte-Keratinocyte Co-cultures Derived From the Healthy Skin of Familial Melanoma Patients
Familial melanoma accounts for 10% of cases, being CDKN2A the main high-risk gene. However, the mechanisms underlying melanomagenesis in these cases remain poorly understood. Our aim was to analyze the transcriptome of melanocyte-keratinocyte co-cultures derived from healthy skin from familial melanoma patients vs. controls, to unveil pathways involved in melanoma development in at-risk individuals. Accordingly, primary melanocyte-keratinocyte co-cultures were established from the healthy skin biopsies of 16 unrelated familial melanoma patients (8 CDKN2A mutant, 8 CDKN2A wild-type) and 7 healthy controls. Whole transcriptome was captured using the SurePrint G3 Human Microarray. Transcriptome analyses included: differential gene expression, functional enrichment, and protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks. We identified a gene profile associated with familial melanoma independently of CDKN2A germline status. Functional enrichment analysis of this profile showed a downregulation of pathways related to DNA repair and immune response in familial melanoma (P less than 0.05). In addition, the PPI network analysis revealed a network that consisted of double-stranded DNA repair genes (including BRCA1, BRCA2, BRIP1, and FANCA), immune response genes, and regulation of chromosome segregation. The hub gene was BRCA1. In conclusion, the constitutive deregulation of BRCA1 pathway genes and the immune response in healthy skin could be a mechanism related to melanoma risk. ; The main funding of this project came from the intramural project Papel del estrés oxidativo en el desarrollo de Melanoma Familiar y otras ER comunes con predisposición al desarrollo de neoplasias cutáneas financed by Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Enfermedades Raras (CIBERER), of the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Spain, co-financed by European Development Regional Fund A way to achieve Europe ERDF. The research at the Melanoma Unit in Barcelona is partially funded by Spanish Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias Grants PI15/00716 and PI15/00956, of the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Spain, co-financed by European Development Regional Fund A way to achieve Europe ERDF; AGAUR 2017_SGR_1134 of the Catalan Government, Spain; European Commission under the 6th Framework Programme, Contract No. LSHC-CT-2006- 018702 (GenoMEL) and by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme, Diagnoptics; The National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the US National Institute of Health (NIH) (CA83115); a grant from Fundació La Marató de TV3 201331- 30, Catalonia, Spain; a grant from Fundación Científica de la Asociación Española Contra el Cáncer GCB15152978SOEN, Spain, and CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya. Part of the work was carried out at the Esther Koplowitz Center, Barcelona. The UC3M-CIEMAT-CIBERER-IISFJD research is mainly supported by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (SAF2017-86810-R) and from the Community of Madrid (AvanCell-CM S2017/BMD- 3692) which are co-funded with European Regional Development Funds (ERDF). TH was currently recipient of a PhD Fellowship at Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands funded by the Dutch Cancer Society (KWF) (10602).