Oncogenic BRAF and NRAS mutations drive human
melanoma initiation. We used transgenic zebrafish to model NRAS-mutant
melanoma, and the rapid
tumor onset allowed us to study candidate
tumor suppressors. We identified P38α-MAPK14 as a potential
tumor suppressor in The
Cancer Genome Atlas
melanoma cohort of NRAS-mutant
melanomas, and overexpression significantly increased the time to
tumor onset in transgenic zebrafish with NRAS-driven
melanoma. Pharmacological activation of P38α-MAPK14 using
anisomycin reduced in vitro viability of
melanoma cultures, which we confirmed by stable overexpression of p38α. We observed that the viability of
MEK inhibitor resistant
melanoma cells could be reduced by combined treatment of
anisomycin and
MEK inhibition. Our study demonstrates that activating the p38α-MAPK14 pathway in the presence of oncogenic NRAS abrogates
melanoma in vitro and in vivo. SIGNIFICANCE: The significance of our study is in the accountability of NRAS mutations in
melanoma. We demonstrate here that activation of p38α-MAPK14 pathway can abrogate NRAS-mutant
melanoma which is contrary to the previously published role of p38α-MAPK14 pathway in BRAF mutant
melanoma. These results implicate that BRAF and NRAS-mutant
melanoma may not be identical biologically. We also demonstrate the translational benefit of our study by using a small molecule compound-
anisomycin (already in use for other diseases in clinical trials) to activate p38α-MAPK14 pathway.