Fig. 4

Upregulation of miR-133a-3p inhibits CSCs-like phenotypes in PCa cells. a Representative images of spheroids formed at 200-fold magnification were counted. Histograms showed the mean number of spheroids formed. Scale bars, 50 μm. Error bars represent the mean ± S.D. of three independent experiments. *P < 0.05. Scale bar, 100 μm. b Hoechst 33,342 dye exclusion assay showed that overexpressing miR-133a-3p reduced the fraction of side population, whereas silencing miR-133a-3p increased the fraction. *P < 0.05. c Real-time PCR analysis of OCT4A, SOX2, NANOG and BMI-1 expression. GAPDH was used as the loading control. Error bars represent the mean ± SD of three independent experiments. Error bars represent the mean ± S.D. of three independent experiments. *P < 0.05. d The estimated percentage of tumor initiating cells required in the indicated mice group