Inhibitory effect of dichloroacetic acid on invasion and migration of human renal cell carcinoma cell line A498

Objective To investigate the effects and mechanisms of dichloroacetic acid (DCA) on the invasion and migration of the renal cell carcinoma cell line A498. Methods Human renal cell carcinoma cell line A498 were cultured and divided into negative a control (NC) group, a low dose DCA group, a medium dose DCA group and a high dose DCA group. The 3 dose groups of DCA were treated with 5, 10, 20 mmol/L DCA, and the NC group was administered isovolumetric sterile saline for 48 hours. Transwell chamber test was used to detect invasive ability and the cell scratch test to detect migration ability. Real-time fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) was used to detect the expression of c-Jun amino-terminal kinase (JNK) , E-cadherin and N-cadherin genes. Western blot was used to detect the expressions of the above proteins and phosphorylated JNK (p-JNK) . The differences in the data of these groups were analyzed by one-way ANOVA in SPSS Statistics 25.0, and SNK-q test was used for comparison between each two groups. Results Comparing with high dose DCA group, the invasive activity decreased in the middle dose DCA group, the low dose DCA group and the negative control group (75.33±10.09 vs 167.89±47.12, 372.74±50.06 and 530.26±81.22/field) , and the relative expression of E-cadherin mRNA decreased (1.52±0.12 vs 1.35±0.11, 1.02±0.11 and 0.85±0.12, respectively) , as well as the relative expression of E-cadherin protein decreased (1.32±0.19 vs 0.89±0.14, 0.37±0.08 and 0.13±0.03, respectively) (all P 0.05) . Conclusion DCA mayinhibit the invasion and migration of human renal cell carcinoma cell line A498 in a dose-dependent manner within a certain range, which is presumed to be related to the expressions of genes and proteins related to invasion and migration. Key words: Dichloroacetic acid; Renal cancer; Invasion; Migration; Epithelial mesenchymal transformation