The first work carried out in vitro on metastatic melanoma cell lines showed the aberrant expression of a block of genes located at 5 end of the HOX C locus (HOX C10, C11, and C13) directly related to alteration of their adhesive properties (integrins and ICAM-I), to a Gln-Arg mutation in the codon 61 of the N-RAS gene, and to the expression of IL-1a, IL-6, and TNF-alpha[38]. The gene discussed is NRAS; the disease is melanoma.