Editorial: ion fluxes and cancer.

The cell is an open thermodynamic system that constitutively exhanges energy and matter with the surrounding microenvironment through the plasma membrane. All cell functions, e.g. survival, proliferation, differentiation, migration, secretion, and excitability, rely on the maintenance of the physiological membrane potential and of driving forces that sustain membrane fluxes of Ca2+, K+, Na+, Cl- and H+, i.e. the main inorganic components of biological fluids. Consequently, the activity of ion channels and transporters, required for transmembrane ion currents, is tightly coupled to cell metabolism. Such a reciprocal interaction between ion fluxes and cell biochemistry occurs through a variety of regulatory pathways and is better evidenced in diseases. On one hand, disfunctions of channels and transporters can impair cell functions; conversely, altered cell biochemical pathways modify ion channels though post-translational modifications (such as phosphorylation and nitrosylation) as well as through interactions with other proteins, lipids and intracellular messengers.