Figure 9

Native quartz exposure leads to sustained inflammasome activation in different cellular and interstitial compartments of the rat lung, which is attenuated by surface modification. Results represent semi-quantitative scoring of caspase-1 (A) and IL-1β (B) immunohistochemistry in different compartments of lungs at acute (7 days) and chronic inflammatory conditions (90 and 360 days) following a single silica or PBS challenge. Data are presented as mean ± SEM with * p-value <0.05 compared to PBS, and # p-value <0.05 compared to DQ12 exposure. C, Z-scores for total inflammasome (of caspase-1 and IL-1β combined) staining intensities over all compartments in DQ12 and DQ12-PVNO groups normalized to the average inflammasome staining of the PBS group at each time point with # p-value <0.05 comparing DQ12-PVNO vs UC with DQ12 vs UC.