Figure 4

Characterization of mouse prostate cancer under the influence of Hedgehog overexpression. (A) The ChgA⁺ neuroendocrine cells were rarely detected in the pCX-IG-injected vehicle control prostate (arrowhead-indicated in (a)) and in PIN and CaP lesions of the pCX-shh-IG-injected prostates (arrowhead-indicated in (b) and (c)). All luminal cells (arrowhead-indicated in (d)) and some basal cells (arrow (1)-indicated in (d)) in the normal prostate expressed AR in the nucleus, in contrast to the nucleus or cytosolic AR localization in the PIN and CaP lesions ((e), (f) and (g)). Some AR^- basal cells (arrow (2)-indicated in (d)) and AR^- progeny of PCSCs were found in the CaP ((f) and the magnified boxed area of (f) as shown in (g)). Western blot analysis confirmed the status of ChgA and AR expression in the vehicle control and pCX-shh-IG-injected prostate ((h)). (B) The PIN and CaP lesions ((b), (c) and (g)) showed similar apoptosis status as compared to the normal prostate ((a) and (g)). PCNA⁺ proliferative cells were increased in the PIN and CaP lesions ((e), (f) and (h)) as compared to normal prostate ((d) and (h)). All scale bars represent 10 μm in length. CaP: prostate cancer; PIN: prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia; HGPIN: high grade prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia.