Fig. 7: DBC1 is required for the metastatic spread and growth of mCRPC cells and is associated with mCRPC progression.

a–c The cell proliferation (a) colony formation (b) and prostasphere-formation analyses (c) of SM1 and SM1-D1KO cells. **P < 0.001. d, e Transwell migration (d) and invasion analysis (e) of SM1 and SM1-D1KO cells transfected with FLAG-HSF1 or/and FLAG-DBC1 expression vector. ***P < 0.0001, **P < 0.001 and *P < 0.01. n.s., not significant. f–h Bioluminescence images of metastatic tumor-bearing mice are shown (f); the percentage of mice with metastasis is indicated from SM1, SM1-H1KO and SM1-D1KO groups (n = 10 per group) (g) and the average signal intensity (n = 10) of regions of interest is quantitated (h). The boxes represent the 25th–75th percentile range. Wilcoxon two-tailed rank-sum test at day 78, **P < 0.001 and *P < 0.05. i The DBC1 transcript levels from the GSE35988 dataset were determined in primary PCa and mCRPC. **P < 0.001. j A correlation analysis of HSF1 and DBC1 expression in mCRPC. Plotted data are log₂ mRNA expression from GSE97284 (n = 188) and GSE189343 (n = 103) datasets. k The transcript levels of MMP11 and GIPC3 from the GSE35988 dataset were determined in primary PCa and mCRPC. ***P < 0.0001. l, m The overall survival analysis of patients with mCRPC with high or low DBC1 expression (l) and with different HSF1 and DBC1 expression levels (m). ***P = 0.007, **P = 0.086 and *P = 0.473.