FIGURE 6.

Inhibitors of the EPOR/JAK2/STAT3 pathway reversed the suppressing effect of EPO on the NLRP3 inflammasome. EMP9 (an EPOR antagonist, 1 mg/mouse), Fedratinib (a JAK2 inhibitor, 100 mg/kg), NSC 74859 (a STAT3 inhibitor, 5 mg/kg), BAY 11-7082 (an NF-κB inhibitor, 20 mg/kg), and DMSO (solvent of the inhibitors) were injected into the peritoneal cavity 30 min before EPO treatment. Then, EPO (5 U/g) was injected into the peritoneal cavity of mice after LPS (15 mg/kg) stimulation. The mice were sacrificed 8 h later, and the lung tissues were harvested to measure the protein expression levels of pro-caspase-1, pro-IL-1β, NLRP3, cleaved caspase-1 (A–E) by Western blotting. The data are presented as the mean ± SD. The differences among groups were assessed by one-way ANOVA and the post hoc test (Turkey method) was applied to investigate the differences one by one. n = 8 per group.