Figure 5.

Pentamidine leads to apoptosis in prostate cancer cells. A, GSEA analysis of RNA‐seq data indicated a positive regulation of release of cytochrome c from mitochondria and intrinsic apoptotic signalling pathway in prostate cancer cells upon pentamidine treatment. NES, normalized enrichment score. B, Heatmaps of the mRNA expression of genes related to apoptosis and cell cycle in pentamidine‐ and vehicle‐treated PC3 and DU145 cells, as analysed by RNA‐seq. FPKMs, fragments per kilobase of transcript per million mapped reads. C, D, qPCR analysis of transcription levels of genes related to apoptosis and cell cycle in PC3 and DU145 cells. E‐H, Flow cytometric assays of the apoptotic percentage (including viable and non‐viable apoptotic cells) in pentamidine‐ and vehicle‐treated PC3 and DU145 cells. Unpaired t test was used for the statistical analysis. *P < .05; **P < .01; ***P < .001. Data are presented as mean ± SD of at least three independent experiments