LECLERC , Justine

Melanoma derives from melanocytes that are responsible for skin pigmentation. It's the deadliest form of skin cancer, as it accounts for more than 80% of total deaths by cutaneous cancer despite representing only 5% of them. The prognosis of metastatic melanoma remains poor. Indeed, targeted therapies and immunotherapies were developed over the...

Cutaneous melanoma (CM) and uveal melanoma (UM) derive from cutaneous and uveal melanocytes that share the same embryonic origin and display the same cellular function. However, the etiopathogenesis and biological behaviors of these melanomas are very different. CM and UM display distinct landscapes of genetic alterations and show different...

Integration of ChIPseq and microarray data allowed to identify to our knowledge previously unreported MITF target genes, among which, the amino acid transporter, SLC7A5. We showed that siRNA-mediated SLC7A5 knock-down decreased pigmentation in B16F10 cells, without affecting morphology nor dendricity. Treatment with the SLC7A5 inhibitors BCH,...

Phenotypic plasticity and subsequent generation of intratumoral heterogeneity underly key traits in malignant melanoma such as drug resistance and metastasis. Melanoma plasticity promotes a switch between proliferative and invasive phenotypes characterized by different transcriptional programs of which MITF is a critical regulator. Here, we...