What is new in Purinergic Signaling and Cervical Cancer?

Abstract

Since our publication “Purinergic Signaling and Tumor Microenvironment in Cervical Cancer” [1], in early 2020, there has been a significant change in purinergic signaling research. The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) significantly impacted the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cervical cancer [2]. In that previous review, we had addressed the possibilities of purinergic signaling in the tumor microenvironment of this type of cancer [1]. The conclusions were: the extracellular medium of cervical cancer is rich in adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and adenosine [3, 4, 5]; ATP is a pro-inflammatory molecule that has an affinity for P2X2, P2X4, and P2X7 receptors [6]; this activation leads to apoptosis of the cells of the cervix [7]; P2X7 is still involved in stimulating factors that lead to mitogenic and angiogenic pathways [8]; there is a variant of P2X7 in cervical cancer cells, P2X7j, which decreases permeability and cell death [9, 10, 11]. The P2Y1, P2Y2, and P2Y6 receptors, in turn, have the effect of tumor progression [12]. The review also contributed to the understanding of adenosine, which would activate A2A receptors on T lymphocytes, which would promote a decrease in the proliferation and effector function of such cells