Figure 4. Mechanism of NLRP3 inflammasome activation in response to M.hy challenge.

5×10⁴ THP-1 were pretreated with different doses of Cathepsin B inhibitor CA-074 Me (A, E) or Cathepsin K Inhibitor I (B, F), KCL (C,G) or EGTA(D, H), then were challenged with M.hy at a concentration of 6.7×10⁷ CCU/ml, 6 hours later the supernatants were harvested for IL-8 and IL-1β ELISA at the same time. Data presented are mean ± SD of one representative out of three independent experiments. ***represents P<0.001, **represents P<0.01 and *represents P<0.05 in comparison with control in statistic analysis.