Synergistic effects of snail and quercetin on renal cell carcinoma Caki-2 by altering AKT/mTOR/ERK1/2 signaling pathways

Renal cell carcinoma has become the most common subtype of kidney cancer, and has the highest propensity to manifest as metastatic disease. Because of lack of knowledge in events that correlated with tumor cell migration and invasion, few therapeutic options are available. Therefore, in current study, we explore the anti-tumoral effect of a potential chemopreventive natural product, quercetin, combined with anti-sense oligo gene therapy (inhibiting Snail gene). We found that either one of them had the remarkable effects in suppressing cell proliferation and migration, inducing cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in a ccRCC cell line, Caki-2 cells. The combination of both means provides even strong suppressive effects toward these ccRCC cells. Our study, for the first time, provides the possibility of using a novel treatment for renal cancer, by combining natural product and gene therapy.