Figure 3.

Pentamidine causes mtDNA reduction in prostate cancer cells. A, GSEA analysis of RNA‐seq data indicated downregulation of genes involved in processes related to mitochondrial RNA and its metabolism in pentamidine‐treated prostate cancer cells. NES, normalized enrichment score. B, Heatmap of the mRNA expression of mitochondria‐encoded genes in pentamidine‐ and vehicle‐treated prostate cancer cells, as analysed by RNA‐seq. FPKMs, fragments per kilobase of transcript per million mapped reads. C, D, qPCR analysis of transcription levels of mitochondria‐encoded genes in PC3 and DU145 cells. E‐G Effects of pentamidine on mtDNA content in PC3, DU145, (E) LAPC4, LNCap, (F) and RWPE‐1 (G) cells. mtDNA, mitochondrial DNA. Unpaired t test was used for the statistical analysis. *P < .05; **P < .01; ***P < .001; ns, no significance. Data are presented as mean ± SD of at least three independent experiments