There is an intriguing connection of synucleins to cancer5,49, which suggests that neurodegeneration and cancer may share common mechanisms: (i) α-syn is highly expressed in melanoma cell lines6, and over-expressing α-syn promotes the proliferation of B16 murine melanoma cells50 as well as human SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells51. Here, SNCA is linked to melanoma.