Abstract 159: Chemokine receptor expression profiling of lymph node invasive versus lymph node non-invasive melanomas

Abstract

Regional lymph nodes are one of the first sites of melanoma metastasis during tumor progression, and lymph node invasion by tumor cells is a poor prognostic factor in melanoma patients. We have employed models of lymph node invasive and lymph node non-invasive murine melanomas to investigate the potential role of chemokine/chemokine receptor signaling pathways in the regulation of tumor cell trafficking to regional lymph nodes. PCR array analyses identified several differentially expressed chemokine and chemokine receptor genes in the lymph node invasive B16-F1 melanoma versus the lymph node non-invasive D5.1G4 melanoma. Among these differentially expressed genes, Cxcr3, Cxcr6, Cxcr7, Cx3cr1, Cxcl10, and Cx3cl1 were all significantly upregulated at the RNA level in B16-F1 melanoma. We are currently validating these differential gene expression data at the protein level, and these findings will provide key insights into the potential role of these chemokines and chemokine receptors in the metastasis of melanoma cells to regional lymph nodes. Citation Format: David Z. Bushhouse, Kristian M. Hargadon. Chemokine receptor expression profiling of lymph node invasive versus lymph node non-invasive melanomas [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2019; 2019 Mar 29-Apr 3; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 159.