Objective To study the inhibitory effect of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs) on the proliferation and invasion of human renal cell carcinoma cell line A498. Methods Human renal cell carcinoma cell line A498 cells were co-cultured with BM-MSCs or human dermal fibroblasts-adult (HDF-a) cells separately, and then cell proliferation was detected by flow cytometry and cell invasion ability was detected by transwell assay in each group. qRT-PCR was used to exam Snail and E-cadherin mRNA expression in A498 cells, HDF-a-treated A498 cells and BM-MSCs-treated A498 cells. Results BM-MSCs greatly inhibited the proliferation and invasion of A498 cells (P<0.05). qRT-PCR showed that co-culture with BM-MSCs significantly down-regulated Snail mRNA expression (P<0.05) and up-regulated E-cadherin mRNA expression (P<0.05) in A498 cells. Compared with BM-MSCs, HDF-a played an opposite role as for the above items. Conclusion BM-MSCs play an important role in the proliferation and invasion of LNCaP cells, which may cast new light for the biotherapy of human renal cell carcinoma cancer.