ACTC1 Knockout AGS Polyclonal Cells are a CRISPR/Cas9-edited polyclonal knockout population of AGS human gastric epithelial cells, designed for disruption of the ACTC1 gene. Alpha-cardiac actin, the encoded protein, is a major sarcomeric thin filament component essential for cardiac muscle contraction and cytoskeletal integrity. This heterogeneous cell pool enables unbiased loss-of-function studies, avoiding clonal selection bias, and is well-suited for pooled genetic screens and population-level phenotypic assays.
The AGS cell line, derived from a primary tumor of a gastric cancer patient, is a widely employed epithelial model for gastric cancer research, including proliferation, migration, and oncogenic signaling studies. The engineering of ACTC1 knockout in this background creates a unique tool to dissect the non-canonical functions of cardiac actin in cytoskeletal organization and cell motility.
ACTC1 is transcriptionally regulated by SRF, MEF2, GATA4, and Myocardin, linking extracellular signals to actin filament assembly. It polymerizes into F-actin and interacts with myosin heavy chain, tropomyosin, troponin, and alpha-actinin to mediate actomyosin contractility and sarcomere assembly. Disruption impairs these interactions, reducing cytoskeletal tension. ACTC1 functions upstream of RhoA and ACTB, and its loss can disrupt focal adhesion and tight junction integrity. Key co-analyzed pathway components include MYH6, TNNT2, and MYL2.
In the AGS gastric cancer background, ACTC1 knockout serves as a powerful tool to examine how loss of cardiac actin remodels epithelial cell behavior. Disruption of ACTC1-driven actin polymerization alters cell adhesion dynamics, impairs focal adhesion turnover, and modulates migration and invasion through Rho GTPase signaling. This model is particularly relevant for elucidating actin isoform-specific mechanisms in gastric cancer metastasis. Furthermore, due to conserved actin biology, these cells can be employed in cardiomyopathy research for drug screening and mechanistic studies of sarcomeric protein function.
The ACTC1 Knockout AGS Polyclonal Cells support diverse research applications, including cardiomyopathy disease modeling, cardiac drug screening, and actin isoform functional comparisons. Gastric cancer motility studies utilize wound healing and Matrigel invasion assays. Protein-level changes are confirmed by Western blotting for ACTC1 and sarcomeric proteins or co-immunoprecipitation of actin-binding partners such as tropomyosin and alpha-actinin. Immunofluorescence visualizes F-actin organization and focal adhesion integrity, while qPCR quantifies transcription of cardiac genes and downstream targets. For additional details or to inquire about this product, please contact Ascent Research.
