Functional characterization of TRPM7 in nasopharyngeal carcinoma and its knockdown effects on tumorigenesis

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the association of functional expression of TRPM7 with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) growth. We examined the correlation of TRPM7 expression with cell growth and proliferation, cell cycle, and apoptosis in vitro in NPC cell lines and NPC tumorigenesis in mice by conducting experiments in mice and by further analyzing the tumor volume and growth. We further explored to see whether there is any positive correlation with the TRPM7 knockdown in NPC cells with their sensitivity to radiation. We found that the functional expression of TRPM7 in nasopharyngeal carcinoma is a critical requirement for physiological processes such as cell cycle, resistance to apoptosis, and cell proliferation. TRPM7 knockdown also enhanced sensitivity to radiotherapy of nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Moreover, we identified TRPM7 as a novel potential regulator of cell proliferation in NPC, through signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3)-mediated signaling pathway and other anti-apoptotic factors. TRPM7 and STAT3 activation might be critical for the growth of NPC cells and could be an effective target for treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

ZKSCAN1 gene and its related circular RNA (circZKSCAN1) both inhibit hepatocellular carcinoma cell growth, migration, and invasion but through different signaling pathways

“…The [3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-5-(3-carboxymethoxyphenyl)-2-(4-sulfophenyl)-2H-tetrazolium] MTS viability assay (Promega) was performed according to standard methods as described previously (Luo et al, 2015). ZKSCAN1 and circZKSCAN1 knockdown or overexpression cell lines and control cells were seeded at 2 9 10 4 cells in 100 lL medium per well of a 96well plate Corning Incorporated (Corning, NY, USA) for the MTS assay (Qi et al, 2014;Qin et al, 2016). The cells were incubated for a total of 3 days with fresh culture medium.…”

“…For the invasion assay, the transwell system and Matrigel BD Biosciences (New York, NY, USA) were used according to the manufacturers' protocols and the invasion assay was performed according to the methods as described previously (Qi et al, 2014;Qin et al, 2016). Aliquots of 1 9 10 6 cells were seeded into the upper chambers, which were precoated with Matrigel, and cultured in serum-free DMEM.…”

Dysregulation of Mg2+ homeostasis contributes to acquisition of cancer hallmarks

“…Overexpression of TRPM7 in human tumours has been validated by other approaches (e.g. Western blot or immunohistochemistry) in prostatic [18,19], nasopharyngeal [20,21], pancreatic [22,23], breast [24,25] and ovarian [26] cancers as well as in glioblastoma [27]. Moreover, in most of these studies TRPM7 expression levels were correlated to clinical parameters such as Ki67 staining, tumour size, grade, or stage, and, most importantly, patient survival.…”

Inhibition of TRPM7 suppresses cell proliferation of colon adenocarcinoma in vitro and induces hypomagnesemia in vivo without affecting azoxymethane-induced early colon cancer in mice

“…Additional studies implicate TRPM7 in tumor growth: the channel is abundantly expressed in a variety of human carcinoma cells and TRPM7 deficiency suppresses their growth [ 14 ]. In human nasopharyngeal carcinoma, the channel has been implicated in carcinogenesis [ 15 ]. Overexpression of TRPM7 is detected in breast cancer tissues correlating with their proliferative potential [ 16 ].…”