Sanjay Premi*
Assistant Professor, Tumor Biology, Moffitt Cancer Center, Florida, USA
*Corresponding Author: Sanjay Premi, Assistant Professor, Tumor Biology, Moffitt Cancer Center, Florida, USA.
Received: May 27, 2020; Published: July 17, 2020
Ultraviolet radiation (UV) from sunlight is a known carcinogen for skin cancers and skin is the largest human organ in direct contact with sunlight’s UV. Majority of carcinogenic mutations induced by UV are the UV-signature, cytosine to thymine transitions, generated from the DNA adducts called Cyclobutane Pyrimidine Dimers (CPDs) [1-3]. Skin has specialized cells called melanocytes that produce melanin, a pigment known to be a potent shield against UV exposure. Contradicting the photoprotective properties of melanin, we discovered that melanin itself is oxidized by combinatorial activity of Nitric Oxide Synthase (NOS) and NADPH Oxidase (NOX). This oxidation produces Reactive Carbonyl Species (RCS) in excited triplet state that generate CPDs in complete absence of UV. The role of this pathway, which we named “melanin chemiexcitation” [4] remains under-represented in melanoma which is one of the deadliest of all skin cancer types.
Citation: Sanjay Premi. “Carcinogenicity of “Photoprotective” Skin-Pigments”. Acta Scientific Cancer Biology 4.8 (2020): 10-11.
Copyright: © 2020 Sanjay Premi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.