Fig. 3
Silica and FCCP rapidly induce DNA damage. a, b Western blot analysis for pCHK2 and γH2AX in cell lysate from 16HBE cells treated with silica (5 μg/cm2) or FCCP (500 nM) at times indicated. c Comet assay analysis of DNA damage in 16HBE cells transfected with siRNA NLRP3 (+) or control siRNA (c) for 72 h and thereafter exposed to silica (5 μg/cm2) for times indicated. d, e Western blot analysis of γH2AX (d) and pCHK2 (e) in cell lysate from A549 WT or A549 NLRP3 knock out (CRISPR-CAS9) cells treated with silica (5 μg/cm2) for times indicated. f Comet assay analysis of DNA damage in A549 WT or A549 NLRP3 knock out cells treated with silica (5 μg/cm2) or FCCP (5 μM). g Western blot analysis for γH2AX (left) and Comet assay analysis of DNA damage (right) in 16HBE cells treated with silica (from 0.1 to 20 μg/cm2) for 10 min. Bars in a, b, d and e show means ± SD. Boxplots in c and f show median with 95% confidence interval. All experiments were performed at least in triplicate. *p < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001 compared to untreated cells, or #p < 0.05, ##p < 0.01, ###p < 0.001 compared to non-transfected cells, as determined by ANOVA