Expression of antiapoptotic Bcl-2 proteins in non-malignant skin cells and melanoma cell lines.

<p>(A) Expression of Bcl-2, Bcl-xL, Bcl-w, and Mcl-1 protein in primary human fibroblasts, keratinocytes, and melanocytes was analyzed by immunoblotting. For each cell type, 2 donors are shown. (B) Expression of Bcl-2, Bcl-xL, Bcl-w and Mcl-1 protein in melanocytes isolated from 4 donors. (C) Expression of Bcl-2, Bcl-xL, Bcl-w and Mcl-1 protein in melanoma cell lines of different progression levels. Blot is representative for 2 independent experiments. (D) Levels of A1 mRNA were measured by quantitative RT-PCR. Mean +/− SD of 3 donors is shown for non-malignant cells, mean +/− SD of 3 cell passages is shown for melanoma cell lines. β-actin served as loading control in immunoblots. The same protein sample of melanocytes from donor #2 was loaded on all gels as a reference to allow the comparison of expression levels among the immunoblots shown in A, B, and C. RGP: radial-growth phase (non-invasive); VGP: vertical growth phase (invasive).