The IC50 of isosilybin B on cytotoxic of BPH-1 and WPMY-1 cells were 67.72 μM and 41.38 μM, respectively) for BPH-1 or 20 μM isosilybin B for WPMY-1 in combination with si-GPX3s, and the increase in apoptosis induced by isosilybin B treatment could be inhibited by the down-regulation of GPX3 (Additional file 6: Fig. S2C–E), which demonstrated that the down-regulation of GPX3 promoted cell survival by accelerating the G0/G1 phase. This evidence concerns the gene GPX3 and benign prostatic hyperplasia.