Figure 7.

Lineage plasticity in prostate tumor cells induced by androgen depletion. Androgen-sensitive prostate cancer cells (LNCaP cells) grown in androgen withdrawal undergo a phenotype switching and exhibit neuroendocrine features like neurite outgrowth and expression of neuron-specific enolase (NSE) and βIII-tubulin. When cells are maintained for more than 30 days in androgen withdrawal, they re-differentiate to stem-like cells, increasing the expressions of CD133, ALDH1A1, and ABCB1A proteins, which are related to drug resistance, and the pluripotent factors Nanog and Oct 4.