Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine, National Center of Competence in Research NCCR TransCure, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland.
Int J Mol Sci. 2020 Mar 9;21(5):1877. doi: 10.3390/ijms21051877.
Cancers of the digestive tract are among the most prevalent types of cancer. These types of cancers are often diagnosed at a late stage, which results in a poor prognosis. Currently, many biomedical studies focus on the role of ion channels, in particular transient receptor potential (TRP) channels, in cancer pathophysiology. TRP channels show mostly non-selective permeability to monovalent and divalent cations. TRP channels are often dysregulated in digestive tract cancers, which can result in alterations of cancer hallmark functions, such as enhanced proliferation, migration, invasion and the inability to induce apoptosis. Therefore, TRP channels could serve as potential diagnostic biomarkers. Moreover, TRP channels are mostly expressed on the cell surface and ion channel targeting drugs do not need to enter the cell, making them attractive candidate drug targets. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge about TRP channels in connection to digestive tract cancers (oral cancer, esophageal cancer, liver cancer, pancreatic cancer, gastric cancer and colorectal cancer) and give an outlook on the potential of TRP channels as cancer biomarkers or therapeutic targets.
消化道癌症是最常见的癌症类型之一。这些类型的癌症通常在晚期才被诊断出来，因此预后较差。目前，许多生物医学研究都集中在离子通道（特别是瞬时受体电位（TRP）通道）在癌症病理生理学中的作用上。TRP 通道对单价和二价阳离子表现出大多是非选择性通透性。TRP 通道在消化道癌症中经常失调，这可能导致癌症标志性功能的改变，例如增强增殖、迁移、侵袭和无法诱导细胞凋亡。因此，TRP 通道可以作为潜在的诊断生物标志物。此外，TRP 通道大多表达在细胞表面，并且离子通道靶向药物不需要进入细胞，这使它们成为有吸引力的候选药物靶点。在这篇综述中，我们总结了 TRP 通道与消化道癌症（口腔癌、食管癌、肝癌、胰腺癌、胃癌和结直肠癌）相关的最新知识，并展望了 TRP 通道作为癌症生物标志物或治疗靶点的潜力。
