Pharmacological strategies targeting potassium channels could prove to be promising cancer therapeutics due to their role in regulating cancer cell proliferation and migration.
Pharmacological strategies targeting potassium channels could prove to be promising cancer therapeutics.
Potassium channels are pore-forming transmembrane proteins that regulate a multitude of biological processes by controlling potassium flow across cell membranes. Aberrant potassium channel functions contribute to diseases such as epilepsy, cardiac arrhythmia, and neuromuscular symptoms collectively known as channelopathies. Increasing evidence suggests that cancer constitutes another category of channelopathies associated with dysregulated channel expression. Indeed, potassium channel-modulating agents have demonstrated antitumor efficacy. Potassium channels regulate cancer cell behaviors such as proliferation and migration through both canonical ion permeation-dependent and noncanonical ion permeation-independent functions. Given their cell surface localization and well-known pharmacology, pharmacological strategies to target potassium channel could prove to be promising cancer therapeutics.
Huang et al. (Mon,) conducted a review in Cancer. Potassium channel-modulating agents was evaluated. Pharmacological strategies targeting potassium channels could prove to be promising cancer therapeutics due to their role in regulating cancer cell proliferation and migration.