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The Relationship between Mitochondria Ca²⁺ Intake Mediated by Mitochondria-associated Endoplasmic Reticulum Membranes and Tumor Genesis

Zijian Zhu, Qingzhi Ma, Qian Wang, Xiacheng Sun, Zhanhua Zhang, Lele Ji and Qichao Huang

Mitochondria-associated endoplasmic reticulum membranes (MAMs) are regions of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) tethered to mitochondria, which play a key role in mediating material transfer and signal transduction between the two organelles. The findings from recent studies on MAMs contributed to deeper understanding of the complexities associated with the structure, the important proteins involved and the intricacies in the related biological pathways. A large number of Ca²⁺ transporter proteins and their regulatory proteins are located on MAMs, which finely regulate a series of important cellular activities such as mitochondrial Ca²⁺ homeostasis, ATP production and cell apoptosis. MAMs are also enriched with many oncogenic proteins and tumor suppressor proteins, which are closely related to the regulation of Ca²⁺ transport. Therefore, the role of MAMs in tumorigenesis has received extensive attention. In this review, we focused on the regulatory mechanisms of Ca²⁺ transport mediated by MAMs and their role in tumorigenesis, aiming to acquire the new insight to further understanding the pathogenesis of tumors.