TRPM7 is required for ovarian cancer cell growth, migration and invasion

•Silence of TRPM7 in ovarian cancer cells inhibits cell proliferation, migration and invasion.•Silence of TRPM7 decreases phosphorylation levels of Akt, Src and p38 in ovarian cancer cells.•Silence of TRPM7 increases expression of filamentous actin and number of focal adhesions in ovarian cancer cells. Our previous study demonstrated that the melastatin-related transient receptor potential channel 7 (TRPM7) was highly expressed in ovarian carcinomas and its overexpression was significantly associated with poor prognosis in ovarian cancer patients. However, the function of TRPM7 in ovarian cancer is mostly unknown. In this study, we examined the roles of TRPM7 in ovarian cancer cell proliferation, migration and invasion. We found that short hairpin RNA interference-mediated silence of TRPM7 significantly inhibited cell proliferation, colony formation, migration and invasion in multiple ovarian cancer cell lines. Mechanistic investigation revealed that silence of TRPM7 decreased phosphorylation levels of Akt, Src and p38 and increased filamentous actin and focal adhesion number in ovarian cancer cells. Thus, our results suggest that TRPM7 is required for proliferation, migration and invasion of ovarian cancer cells through regulating multiple signaling transduction pathways and the formation of focal adhesions.