摘要
Dear Editor Bone is the most common site for metastasis in prostate cancer(PCa),and identifying clinically useful biomarkers to predict the risk of currently incurable bone metastases is a major priority in PCa research.Extracellular adenosine triphosphate(ATP)was shown to be a major biochemical constituent of the tumor microenvironment and regulates the tumor and host interactions by acting at P2 purinergic receptors.Among the P2 receptors,the ion channel P2X purinergic receptor 7(P2X7R)has an unusually long C-terminus containing 200 amino acids,which forms the molecular basis for the unique bi-function of P2X7R promoting cancer cell proliferation or inducing membrane permeabilization and apoptosis,upon activation by a low or high concentration of ATP,respectively.
