Fig. 8.

Gal3 triggers IL1β production via an NLRP3 inflammasome-dependent pathway. a Mice of 6 weeks were intrastriatally injected with lentiviruses harboring shLgals3 to down-regulate Gal3 and then monitored for an additional 7 weeks. Brain tissues were carefully removed and subjected to immunofluorescence staining to determine the levels of Gal3 (green) and NLRP3 (gray). Four animals in each group were examined. Data are presented as the means ± SEM. *Specific comparison between WT and R6/2 mice infected with the same lentivirus; #Specific comparison between mice of the same genotype. b Primary microglia were treated with MCC950 (1 µM, an inhibitor of NLRP3) or PBS (0.1%) for 24 h. The levels of IL1β released by these cells were measured by ELISA. Each dot represents the mean value of one sample. Three independent experiments were conducted. Data are presented as the mean ± SEM. The results were analyzed by two-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s post hoc test. *Specific comparison between WT and R6/2 cells; #Specific comparison between R6/2 cells treated with PBS and MCC950. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ****P < 0.0001. Same P-value denotation for #. Scale bar: 10 µm. Source data is available as a Source Data File