Study on the role of transient receptor potential C6 channels in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma radiosensitivity

Esophageal cancer is a common malignant solid tumor, now ranking as the sixth leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide and the fourth cause death in China. It affects more than 450,000 people worldwide and the incidence is increasing rapidly (1-4). The overall 5-year survival ranges from 15% to 25%, and the best outcomes are associated with disease diagnosed in the early stages (5). There are two major types of esophageal cancers, squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma, and the esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) has especially high morbidity and mortality in China (6). The high recurrence rate after surgery is a main problem. It has reported that adjuvant chemo-radiotherapy after surgery can raise the survival rate, and the radiotherapy dosage is one of the main reasons positively correlation to the treatment effectiveness (7). We usually choose lower radiotherapy dosage because of the main organs nearby the esophagus. So, the radiosensitivity is the important issue we have to research. Ca2+, as a ubiquitous second messenger, was reported to be a key role in control of gene expression, cell cycle progression, apoptosis, proliferation and differentiation in many cancers (8,9). Meanwhile, expression and activation of the channels in the transient receptor potential (TRP) superfamily were found in different cancers (10)