DHT upregulates AR expression and increases PSA secretion in LNCaP cells.

<p>(<b>A</b>) DHT upregulates AR expression in LNCaP cells in both time-dependent and concentration-dependent manners (left panel); there are also higher levels of PSA in the DHT treated cells revealed by the ELISA method (right panel). (<b>B</b>) Immunocytochemistry shows nuclear positivity of AR in LNCaP cells and its expression is upregulated by DHT treatment; but AR expression is negative in the PC-3 cells with/without DHT treatment (bar scale: 50 µm).</p

Immunohistochemistry of SHBG expression in prostate cancer tissues.

<p>(A) Positive and negative control of SHBG in liver tissues. (B) Weak SHBG positivity is shown in a benign prostate tumor and strong SHBG immunoreactivity is revealed in a malignant Gleason score 8 cancer tissue. (C) Representative immunohistochemical images of different scores of prostate cancer samples are shown. Bar scale in all of the images is 150 µm.</p

Stem-like phenotype analyses by flow cytometry.

<p>(A–C) CD44, CD24 and CD90 expressions were analyzed by flow cytometry in LNCaP and PC-3 cells cultivated with/without DHT in 10 nM for 48 hours. CD44 was induced by DHT treatment in both cell lines (A). No statistically significant difference of CD24 expression level was shown in both cell lines (B). CD90 expression was significantly increased by DHT stimulation in both cell lines (C). (* means <i>P</i><0.05).</p

Clinical and pathologic characteristics for 117 patients with malignant prostate cancer.

<p>PSA, prostatic specific antigen.</p

DHT induces cell growth and clonogenicity in prostate cancer cell lines.

<p>(A) Cell growth curves show statistically significant difference in LNCaP cells with/without DHT treatment, but not in PC-3 cells (* means <i>P</i><0.05). (B) Representative photographs of colony formation in both cell lines demonstrate that more colonies were formed by 1 nM DHT treatment and even more colonies were obtained by 10 nM DHT treatment (bar scale: 50 mm). (C) Histograms of colony formation efficiency show statistically higher efficiencies in the cells treated with low concentration of DHT (<i>P</i><0.01), and even higher efficiencies in the cells by high concentration of DHT (<i>P</i><0.001). (D) Representative photographs for sphere formation for both cell lines in the cells with/without DHT treatment (bar scale: 50 µm). (E) Histograms for sphere formation efficiency show higher efficiencies in the cells added with 1 nM DHT (<i>P</i><0.05), and even higher efficiencies in the cells stimulated with 10 nM DHT (<i>P</i><0.01).</p