Shedding light on melanoma

Not just confined to sunny places, the incidence of melanoma has been rising in all fair-skinned populations around the world. How much is known about the causes of this disease, and can this knowledge be applied to preventive strategies?     

Shedding a little light on light chains

Myosin II regulatory light chains have an important role in the organization and function of the contractile machinery at cytokinesis. Two recent reports provide new insights into these important proteins.     

Shedding light on ADAM metalloproteinases

ADAM metalloproteinase disintegrins have emerged as the major proteinase family that mediates ectodomain shedding, the proteolytic release of extracellular domains from their membrane-bound precursors. Recent gene-manipulation studies have established the role of ADAM-mediated shedding in mammalian physiology and, in addition, raised the issue of functional redundancy among ADAM sheddases. ADAM sheddases activate, for example, growth factors and cytokines, thus regulating signalling pathways that are important in development and pathological processes such as cancer. The recent studies have also begun to elucidate the substrate specificity and the mechanisms that control ADAM-mediated shedding events that regulate, for example, growth-factor and Notch signalling, and the processing of the amyloid precursor protein.