Chemotherapeutic drugs sensitize human renal cell carcinoma cells to ABT-737 by a mechanism involving the Noxa-dependent inactivation of Mcl-1 or A1.

Background: Human renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is very resistant to chemotherapy. ABT-737 is a novel inhibitor of anti-apoptotic proteins of the Bcl-2 family that has shown promise in various preclinical tumour models.

Results: We here report a strong over-additive pro-apoptotic effect of ABT-737 and etoposide, vinblastine or paclitaxel but not 5-fluorouracil in cell lines from human RCC.