Fig. 4.

Pleural IL-1β/caspase-1 inhibition interferes with bleomycin-induced lung fibrosis. Mice were injected intravenously with NaCl or BLM together with intrapleural delivery of IL-1ra at the indicated doses or NaCl as a control (n = 5 mice/group). a qPCR analysis for the expression of E-Cadherin and PAI-1. Expression relative to L32 and normalized with the NaCl group is shown. b Histomorphometric quantification of collagen in lung parenchyma on lung sections from the above described mice. c Double staining for FLICA caspase-1 (green) and α-SMA (red) on lung sections of mice intravenously injected with BLM or NaCl. Representative images, n = 5/group. Nuclear staining: DAPI (blue), dotted lines represent the pleura, scale bars: 50 μm. *p ≤ 0.05, **p ≤ 0.01