Acheron (Achn), a phylogenetically-conserved member of the Lupus antigen family of RNA binding proteins, was initially identified as a novel cell death-associated gene from the intersegmental muscles of the tobacco hawkmoth Manduca sexta. C(2)C(12) cells are a standard model for the study of myogenesis. When deprived of growth factors, these cells can be induced to: form multinucleated myotubes...

A cultured renal carcinoma cell line, ACHN, continued to proliferate in the absence of exogenous growth factors supplied by fetal calf serum. ACHN cells had been previously used as the immunogen for the production of monoclonal antibody 5F4. Subsequent immunohistochemical studies showed that 5F4 strongly and selectively reacted with renal carcinoma cells compared with normal renal epithelium, s...

Sunitinib is a tyrosine kinase inhibitor that is used as the primary treatment in metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The main difficulty associated with its use is the development of drug resistance. In the present study, ACHN cells, a human renal cell carcinoma cell line, were used to establish sunitinib-resistant (SR) cells. Microarray analysis and reverse transcription-quantitative polym...

BACKGROUND Metformin is a widely used biguanide drug for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. It has been revaluated as a potential anti-cancer drug with promising activity in various tumors. However, the precise mechanisms underlying the suppression of cancer cells by metformin remain not well understood. MATERIAL AND METHODS In this study, human renal cell carcinoma cell line ACHN was used to in...

We examined the effect of chronic exposure of tumor cells to a mitogen-activated protein kinase/extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERK) kinase inhibitor, PD98059, on cell proliferation was investigated. Human renal carcinoma cells (ACHN) and prostatic carcinoma cells (DU145) were cultured in the presence of PD98059 for more than 4 weeks (denoted ACHN (PD) cells and DU145 (PD) cells, respec...

Cancer stem cells (CSC) or cancer stem cell-like cells (CSC-LCs) have been identified in many malignant tumors. CSCs are proposed to be related with drug resistance, tumor recurrence, and metastasis and are considered as a new target for cancer treatment; however, there are only a few reports on CSCs or CSC-LCs in renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Different approaches have been reported for CSC ident...

Bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP-2), a member of the transforming growth factor superfamily, has been shown to have inhibitory effect on many tumor types. However, the effect of BMP-2 on human renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is still unknown. We previously showed that BMP-2 inhibits tumorigenicity of cancer stem cells in human osteosarcoma OS99-1 cells. Our study investigates the effect of BMP-2 on...

Rapamycin analogues have antitumor efficacy in several tumor types, however few patients demonstrate tumor regression. Thus, there is a pressing need for markers of intrinsic response/resistance and rational combination therapies. We hypothesized that epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) confers rapamycin resistance. We found that the epithelial marker E-cadherin protein is higher in rapa...

OBJECTIVES Reports of Enterobacteriaceae resistant to all commonly used antimicrobial agents, including β-lactams, fluoroquinolones and aminoglycosides, are increasing in hospitals worldwide. The activity of ACHN-490, a next-generation aminoglycoside, was examined against clinical isolates of Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae from hospitals in New York City, an area where multidrug-res...