PHARMACEUTICAL COMPOSITIONS CONTAINING AN AGENT EFFECTIVE TO REDUCE THE EFFECTIVE AMOUNT OF CLUSTERIN

摘要

Treatment of melanoma is achieved through reduction in the effective amount of clusterin in melanoma cells. Thus, in accordance with one aspect of the invention, there is provided a method for treatment of melanoma in a mammalian subject, preferably a human, comprising the step of administering to the subject a therapeutic agent effective to reduce the effective amount of clusterin in the melanoma cells. The therapeutic agent may be, for example, an antisense ODN or small inhibitory RNA (siRNA) compound targeted to clusterin. The present invention also provides a method for regulating expression of bcl-xL in a subject or cell line comprising administering to the subject or cell line an agent effective to modulate the amount of clusterin expression. In particular, in clusterin expressing cells, the expression of bcl-xL is down-regulated when the effective amount of clusterin is reduced. Such inhibition is significant because bcl-xL is known to act as an inhibitor of apoptosis.