Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the most aggressive forms of cancer with a tendency to invade surrounding healthy tissues, leading to a largely incurable disease. Despite many advances in modern medicine, there is still a lack of early biomarkers as well as efficient therapeutical strategies. The melastatin-related transient receptor potential 7 channel (TRPM7) is a nonselective cation channel that is involved in maintaining Ca 21 and Mg 21 homeostasis. It has been recently reported to regulate cell differentiation, proliferation and migration. However, the role of TRPM7 in PDAC progression is far to be understood. In our study, we show that TRPM7 is 13-fold overexpressed in cancer tissues compared to the healthy ones. Furthermore, TRPM7 staining is stronger in tumors with high grade, suggesting a correlation between TRPM7 expression and PDAC progression. Importantly, TRPM7 expression is inversely related to patient survival. In BxPC-3 cell line, dialyzing the cytoplasm during the patch-clamp whole-cell recording with a 0-Mg 21 solution activated a nonselective current with a strong outward rectification. This cation current is inhibited by intracellular Mg 21 and by TRPM7 silencing. The downregulation of TRPM7 by small interference RNA dramatically inhibited intracellular Mg 21 fluorescence and cell migration without affecting cell proliferation, suggesting that TRPM7 contributes to Mg 21 entry and cell migration. Moreover, external Mg 21 following TRPM7 silencing fully restored the cell migration. In summary, our results indicate that TRPM7 is involved in the BxPC-3 cell migration via a Mg 21 -dependent mechanism and may be a potential biomarker of poor prognosis of PDAC.Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is the fifth most frequent cause of cancer-related mortality in the European Union 1 and the the fourth most frequent cause in the United States. 2 PDAC has a poor long-term prognosis with 5-year survival rates of only 1-4%. Current therapeutic strategies generally result in only a few months of extended life because PDAC develops insidiously and metastasizes quickly and widely. Thus, a greater understanding of the molecular processes involved in PDAC progression and metastasis is urgently needed.Ion channels are transmembrane proteins that are involved in a wide panel of physiological cell mechanisms, including excitability, secretion, proliferation, apoptosis and motility. Nevertheless, a growing amount of studies show that ion channels expression is altered in several cancers including breast and prostate. 3 Among these ion channels, members of the transient receptor potential (TRP) family have been proposed as prognosis markers in breast and prostate cancers. 4,5 TRP melastatin-related 7 (TRPM7) channels are a member of ''chanzymes,'' which are unique feature of cation channels fused with a kinase function. 6,7 They allow magnesium and calcium entries; however, they are mainly involved in magnesium homeostasis. 8 In the digestive system, TRPM7 channels are expressed and involved in ...