Melanoma, the most lethal form of skin cancer, is difficult to treat, but researchers have identified a potential drug target: a protein that blocks the effect of the tumour suppressor p53.

Jean-Christophe Marine at the Dutch-speaking Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, and his colleagues found that levels of the protein, MDM4, are elevated in about 65% of human melanomas. When they overexpressed MDM4 in melanoma-prone mice, the researchers found that nearly all the animals developed melanoma, compared with only about half of the control mice, and the animals did so much more quickly. Treating human melanoma cells with a molecule that blocks the interaction between MDM4 and p53 restored p53 activity, with those cells undergoing apoptosis, or programmed cell death. This treatment also rendered melanoma cells more sensitive to two common chemotherapy drugs.

Inhibiting MDM4 could boost the effectiveness of other drugs, the authors suggest.

Nature Med. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nm.2863 (2012)