are present, more phosphorylation occurs and chromosomes are more susceptible to damage. Histone phosphorylation of H3S10 has been shown to associate with H3 acetylation, which is integral in transcription activation (Rossetto et al., 2012). If transcription is altered, cells are generally negatively impacted and they react in adverse ways that may harm the organism. Roles microRNAs play in melanoma development Scientists have wondered how melanoma cells travel from major tumors found on the surface of the skin to the liver, brain, lungs and other organs where they become very destructive, resistant to treatments and even cause death. Research being conducted tries to answer the question of how and why melanoma cells become defective and cause harm to people. Many studies have found that some classes of short strands of RNA, called microRNAs, are linked to these harmful properties of melanoma cells. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are non-coding RNAs of roughly 20-22 nucleotides in length. They function in post-transcriptional gene regulation, preventing a particular protein from being produced. They can do this in many ways, such as binding to and destroying the messenger RNA that otherwise would have produced the protein. MiRNAs have also been shown to bind directly to messenger RNA and silence them before they are able to be translated into proteins which would play important roles in transcription (O'Donnell et al., 2005). There are roughly 1000 miRNAs in the human genome, and about 33% of all human messenger RNAs are under their control (Liu et al. 2012). MiRNAs function in several areas of biological processes, including differentiation, proliferation and apoptosis. They have also been found to play important roles in the development of cancers. Some of these non-coding RNAs, including miRNA-205, have been linked, recently, to the over or under expression of several genes associated with cancer and other life-threatening diseases such as heart disease, and alterations in their expressions have been shown to impact cancer cell growth, survival and the ability to spread (Liu et al. 2012). For instance, the loss of the miRNA-205 expression is associated with the metastasis of melanoma (Liu et al. 2012). An overproduction of MiRNAs can cause the epigenetic silencing of many important genes such as MITF, FOXO3, TFAP2C, CCND1, ITGA3 and c-KIT, needed in cell cycle regulation, and this can cause a cell to become cancerous (He et al., 2005). MicroRNAs and genes involved in melanoma A particular miRNA, MiR-182, has been found