The m(6)A-suppressed P2RX6 activation promotes renal cancer cells migration and invasion through ATP-induced Ca(2+) influx modulating ERK1/2 phosphorylation and MMP9 signaling pathway

BACKGROUND: Previous study demonstrated that extracellular ATP could promote cell migration and invasion in multiple human cancers. Till now, the pro-invasive mechanisms of ATP and P2RX6, a preferred receptor for ATP, are still poorly studied in RCC. METHODS: Bioinformatics analysis was performed to identify the differentially expressed genes during RCC different stages. Tissue microarray, IHC staining and survival analysis was respectively used to evaluate potential clinical function. In vitro and in vivo assays were performed to explore the P2RX6 biological effects in RCC progression. RESULTS: We found that ATP might increase RCC cells migration and invasion through P2RX6. Mechanism dissection revealed that ATP-P2RX6 might modulate the Ca(2+)-mediated p-ERK1/2/MMP9 signaling to increase the RCC cells migration and invasion. Furthermore, METTL14 implicated m(6)A modification in RCC and down-regulated P2RX6 protein translation. In addition, human clinical survey also indicated the positive correlation of this newly identified signaling in RCC progression and prognosis. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings revealed that the newly identified ATP-P2RX6-Ca(2+)-p-ERK1/2-MMP9 signaling facilitates RCC cell invasion and metastasis. Targeting this novel signaling pathway with small molecules might help us to develop a new approach to better suppress RCC progression. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13046-019-1223-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.