Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is one the most common cancers worldwide, accounting for 2% of global cancer deaths and more than 90% of cancer diagnoses in the kidney 1 . More than 14,770 deaths were estimated in the United States at 2019 2 . Three major subtypes, clear cell RCC 3 , papillary RCC 4 and chromophobe RCC 5 , and a rare subtypes 6 unable to fit any subtype diagnostic criteria, were present in clinical patients 7 . Among these subtypes of RCC, clear cell RCC (ccRCC), also known as kidney renal clear cell carcinoma (KIRC), is the most common one, causing approximately 13,000 deaths in China at 2014 8 . As one of the well-known cancers with resistant to radiotherapy and chemotherapy 1 , ccRCC causes less than 20% 2-year survival rate of patients, which requires well-defined diagnostic biomarkers to facilitate early detection and risk stratification. Surgery is the primary treatment choice for localized renal cancer. Localized RCC can be treated with partial or radical nephrectomy ablation or active surveillance 9-11 , yet up to 30% of these patients develop metastases eventually nonetheless 12 . There are currently no efficient immunotherapy and molecular targeted drugs because of the overt complexity of intratumour and intertumour heterogeneity for clinical outcomes observed 4,[13][14][15] . Therefore, it is imperative to reveal the underlying molecular mechanisms and to identify molecular biomarkers of ccRCC for therapeutic targets.Nuclear transporters play a crucial role in regulating the pathological development of cancers. Karyopherin α2 (KPNA2, also known as importin α1) belongs to 7 members of the karyopherin α (also called importin α) protein family, which plays a major role in