N-acetyl-cysteine enhances cell adhesion properties of epithelial and lymphoid cells.

✍ Scribed by Roberto Rivabene; Marina Viora; Paola Matarrese; Gabriella Rainaldi; Antonella D'Ambrosio; Walter Malorni

• Book ID: 102966171
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1995
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 664 KB
• Volume: 19
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1065-6995
• DOI: 10.1006/cbir.1995.1117

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

In this paper, we show that the antioxidant N‐acetyl‐cysteine (NAC) is capable of enhancing the adhesion properties of the epithelial cell line A431 and of the lymphocytic cells with cytotoxic activitv from human peripheral blood: the natural killer (NK) cells. This effect leads to an increased efficiency of A431 cells to form a monolayer and of NK cells to kill their targets. In both cases a specific effect of NAC was found in the distribution of those molecules of the cytoskeleton which are generally involved in cell substrate and cell‐to‐cell contact region formation, e.g., the actin microfilaments. NAC could thus behave as a drug influencing certain cytoskeleton‐dependent cell processes in a non‐histotype dependent manner.