**6. Future perspectives**

In a recent paper [146], an ICT molecular profile was defined for BC thus opening interesting perspectives in this field. In particular, the expression of 30 ion channel genes was shown to be associated with tumor grade. The authors were able of identifying a "IC30 gene signature" composed of 30 ion channel genes and demonstrated that IC30 might represent a prognostic biomarker predicting clinical outcome in BC, independently from clinical and pathological prognostic factors. The same approach was applied to LC and 37 ion channels genes were identified as differentially expressed in LC in comparison to healthy lung [147]. Moreover, 31 ion channel genes were identified as differentially expressed between lung adenocarcinoma and squamous-cell carcinoma samples, therefore the expression of such genes could be used for NSCLC molecular classification [147]. In NSCLC, it was shown that VDAC1 is an independent prognostic factor and it is associated with shorter overall survival [147]. VDAC1 was also found to be up-regulated in different types of carcinomas [148]. More recently, a paper describing gene expression profile in lymphomas demonstrated that *KCNN4* and *SLC2A1* genes are overexpressed in follicular lymphomas (FL) [130]. In particular, *SLC2A1* was proposed to be the hub of a functional network, connecting channels and transporters in FL. Moreover, relapsed FL had 38 differentially expressed ICT genes, among which **ATP9A**, **SLC2A1** and **KCNN4** were under-expressed. In the same paper, it was shown that diffuse large B Cell lymphoma (DLBCL) have a completely different pattern of K+ channel encoding genes expression along with the overexpression of the fatty acid transporter-encoding gene **SLC27A1**.
