https://phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at/o:4837 Gray-Horse Melanoma-A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing Brodesser, Daniela M Daniela M Brodesser University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna Schlangen, Karin Karin Schlangen Rodriguez-Rojas, Alexandro Alexandro Rodriguez-Rojas 0000-0002-4119-8127 University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna Kuropka, Benno Benno Kuropka Doulidis, Pavlos G. Pavlos G. Doulidis 0000-0001-8731-2936 University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna Brandt, Sabine Sabine Brandt 0000-0002-3837-3422 University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna Pratscher, Barbara Barbara Pratscher 0000-0001-5291-1365 University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna MDPI journal article open access eng Malignant melanoma (MM) affects not only humans but also animals, with gray horses being particularly predisposed to acquiring the disease. Multiomics have greatly advanced the understanding of human MM. In contrasty little is known regarding the pathogenesis of gray-horse melanoma and the unique phenomenon of melanoma “dormancy” in some animals. To help close this gap in knowledge, melanoma tissue and intact skin collected from gray horses were subjected to transcriptome analysis using RNAseq. In the next step, cultured primary tumor cells and normal skin fibroblasts were established from gray horses, and their protein expression profiles were determined. The obtained data unambiguously identified gray-horse melanoma (ghM) as a malignant tumor, as reflected by the overrepresentation of pathways typically activated in human melanoma and other human cancers. These included the RAS/RAF/MAPK, the IRS/IGF1R, and the PI3K/AKT signaling networks. In addition, the obtained data suggest that the key molecules RAC1, RAS, and BRAF, which are frequently mutated in human melanoma, may also contain activating mutations in ghM, whilst PTEN may harbor loss-of-function mutations. This issue will be subject to downstream analyses determining the mutational status in ghM to further advance the understanding of this frequent disease in gray horses. Melanoma Gray-horse Melanoma Tumor Tissue Primary Melanoma Cells RNAseq Proteomics http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at/api/object/o:4837/download 10.3390/ijms26146620 https://phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at/o:605 application/pdf International Journal of Molecular Sciences issn:1422-0067 VoR International Journal of Molecular Sciences 26 14 771.79 kB 2025