Two contradictory facades of N-acetylcysteine activity towards renal carcinoma cells

Abstract

As a prescribed antioxidant, N-Acetylcysteine is used in treating disease and supportive care. However, N-acetylcysteine’s role in cancer therapy is controversial and needs to be investigated thoroughly. Presently, renal cell carcinoma is one of the most common forms of malignancy and needs new anti-cancer drugs with high efficacy and low side effect. Herein, we studied the effect of N-acetylcysteine on cell proliferation, oxidant stress, and apoptosis on human renal cell carcinoma cell line A498 and tried to understand the mechanisms driving these effects. The results show that N-acetylcysteine could enhance antioxidative activities against oxidative damage and suppress the expression of the directly apoptotic protein to inhibit apoptosis when used at low concentration (10 mM), thereby killing A498 cells. Therefore, N-acetylcysteine has two contradictory activities towards renal cell carcinoma cells.

Keywords

• Renal cell carcinoma therapy
• N-acetylcysteine; oxidative stress
• apoptosis