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. 2013 Nov 11;8(11):e78537. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0078537

Figure 5. Ethanol inhibits release and oligomerization of ASC.

Figure 5

(A) LPS-primed THP-1 cells were preincubated in 10‰ (171 mM) ethanol prior to the activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome with nigericin. ASC (22 kDa) was blotted from the supernatants (SN) and cell lysates. Western blots shown are representative of 4 experiments. (B) The intensities of the ASC bands of the cell culture supernatants were analyzed from 4 individual experiments, and are expressed as fold changes compared to the LPS-primed nigericin-activated cells. The results are expressed as means of ± s.e.m. (C) THP-1 cells were preincubated in 10‰ (171 mM) ethanol prior to the activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome with nigericin. Cells were fixed and analyzed for ASC expression using epifluorescence microscopy. (D) To quantify the extent of speck formation, the number of specks was divided by the number of cells per field and expressed as a percentage. The results are expressed as means ± s.e.m. from 4 individual experiments.