Malignant melanoma is a neoplasm of pigment-producing cells called melanocytes that occurs most often in the skin, but may also occur in the eyes, ears, gastrointestinal tract, leptomeninges, and oral and genital mucous membranes (summary by Habif, 2010). Genetic Heterogeneity of Susceptibility to Cutaneous Malignant Melanoma The locus for susceptibility to familial cutaneous malignant melanoma-1 (CMM1) has been mapped to chromosome 1p36. Other CMM susceptibility loci include CMM2 (155601), caused by variation in the CDKN2A gene (600160) on chromosome 9p21; CMM3 (609048), caused by variation in the CDK4 gene (123829) on chromosome 12q14; CMM4 (608035), mapped to chromosome 1p22; CMM5 (613099), caused by variation in the MC1R gene (155555) on chromosome 16q24; CMM6 (613972), caused by variation in the XRCC3 gene (600675) on chromosome 14q32; CMM7 (612263), mapped to chromosome 20q11; CMM8 (614456), caused by variation in the MITF gene (156845) on chromosome 3p13; CMM9 (615134), caused by variation in the TERT gene (187270) on chromosome 5p15; and CMM10 (615848), caused by mutation in the POT1 gene (606478) on chromosome 7q31. Somatic mutations causing malignant melanoma have also been identified in several genes, including BRAF (164757), STK11 (602216), PTEN (601728), TRRAP (603015), DCC (120470), GRIN2A (138253), ZNF831, BAP1 (603089), and RASA2 (601589). A large percentage of melanomas (40-60%) carry an activating somatic mutation in the BRAF gene, most often V600E (164757.0001) (Davies et al., 2002; Pollock et al., 2003).

Malignant melanoma is a neoplasm of pigment-producing cells called melanocytes that occurs most often in the skin, but may also occur in the eyes, ears, gastrointestinal tract, leptomeninges, and oral and genital mucous membranes (summary by Habif, 2010). For a discussion of genetic heterogeneity of malignant melanoma, see 155600.