UC Irvine

Our results clearly indicate that FSH, melatonin, and NGF affect clonogenic human melanoma cells and suggest that manipulation of these hormones may offer a new avenue to explore in the clinical managment of malignant melanoma. We speculate that the heterogeneous clinical nature of malanoma may be related to the expression of responses to trophic hormones related to the neural-crest origin of melanocytes and, thus, that the biological behavior of melanoma may be explicible (or at least classificable) in terms of particular trophic hormone responses.