p53 plays a central role in UVA and UVB induced cell damage and apoptosis in melanoma cells.

We investigated whether p53 plays a role in UV induced apoptosis in melanoma. UVA and UVB induced apoptosis in dose dependent and wild type p53 melanoma cells were much more vulnerable than the mutant cells, indicating that p53 played a role in UV-induced apoptosis in melanoma. No difference in p53 expression pattern between the primary and matched metastatic melanomas was noticed in tumour tissue or cell lines from the same patients. Our findings indicate that expression of p53 plays a role in UV-induced apoptosis in melanoma cells, but not important in melanoma progression from primary to metastasis.