Fig. 9
Inhibition of NADPH oxidase by DPI abolished PM2.5-induced NF-κB nuclear translocation, NLRP3 inflammasome activation, and IL-1β production. The MH-S cells were treated with 10 μM DPI for 2 h, followed by 50 μg/mL of PM2.5 for 6 h with/without 30 mM glucose pretreatment for 18 days. The cells treated with physiological saline were used as control. Nuclear and cytoplasmic proteins were extracted from the cells by using NE-PER™ Nuclear and Cytoplasmic Extraction Reagent (Thermo Scientific). The expression of β-actin was used as an internal reference for cytoplasmic protein while histone H3 was for nuclear protein. a is the Western blot result of a single experiment while b and c are the normalized results of Western blots. Data are shown as mean ± SEM (n = 3). * p < 0.05 vs. control; # p < 0.05 vs. group with PM2.5 treatment only; $ p < 0.05 vs. group with the same PM2.5 and glucose treatments, but without DPI pretreatment. Nuc, nuclear protein; Cyt, cytoplasmic protein; n.s., not specific