Figure 6

Effects of 4 days administration of BMP-2 (50-100 ng/ml) on growth, migration, invasion and transcriptional activity of DU145 and PC3 cells. Cell growth, as evaluated by the crystal violet assay, is significantly inhibited by BMP-2 at 48 and 96 h (A, B, left panels, DU145 and PC3 cells respectively). Means ± SD of three independent experiments run in sextuplicate are shown (*P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001). DU145 and PC3 cells exposed for 4 days to 50-100 ng/ml BMP-2 and then subjected to the chemotaxis assay show a decreased migratory activity (A, B, middle panels) that was associated with a less invasive/metastatic phenotype (A, B, right panels). Means ± SD of three independent experiments run in triplicate are shown (*P < 0.05, ***P < 0.001). C). DU145 cells exposed for 4 days to BMP-2 (50-100 ng/ml) show significant reduction of soluble β-catenin that correlates with less active AKT, reduced cyclin D1 levels (D) and increased expression of E-cadherin (D), all indicative of a less metastatic phenotype. The experiments were carried out independently two times and PC3 gave similar results. Protein expression, relative to controls set at 1, is shown.