NDRG2 suppresses the proliferation of clear cell renal cell carcinoma cell A-498

Background: recently,the anti-tumor activity of n-myc downstream-regulated gene 2 (ndrg2) was shown decreased expression in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccrcc),but the role of the down-expression of ndrg2 has not been described. methods: the ndrg2 recombinant adenovirus plasmid was constructed. the proliferation rate and ndrg2 expression of cell infected with recombinant plasmid were mesured by mtt,flow cytometry analysis and western blot. results: the ccrcc cell a-498 re-expressed ndrg2 when infected by ndrg2 recombinant adenovirus and significantly decreased the proliferation rate. fluorescence activated cell sorter analysis showed that 25.00% of cells expressed ndrg2 were in s-phase compared to 40.67% of control cells,whereas 62.08% of cells expressed ndrg2 were in g1-phase compared to 54.39% of control cells (p < 0.05). in addition,there were much more apoptotic cells in ndrg2-expressing cells than in the controls (p < 0.05). moreover,upregulation of ndrg2 protein was associated with a reduction in cyclin d1,cyclin e,whereas cyclind2,cyclind3 and cdk2 were not affected examined by western blot. furthermore,we found that p53 could upregulate ndrg2 expression in a-498 cell. conclusions: we found that ndrg2 can inhibit the proliferation of the renal carcinoma cells and induce arrest at g1 phase. p53 can up-regulate the expression of ndrg2. our results showed that ndrg2 may function as a tumor suppressor in ccrcc. © 2010 ma et al; licensee biomed central ltd.