Figure 7.

Scheme of minocycline-induced autophagy and inflammatory suppression in LPS-stimulated THP-1 cells. LPS induces mTOR activation, resulting in cell proliferation and autophagy inhibition. Simultaneously, LPS induces activation of the NF-κB signal pathway and induces the expression of TNF-α, which is the dominant pathway and ultimately results in activation of autophagy. Minocycline inhibits mTOR and enhances induced autophagy, resulting in inhibition of inflammatory cell proliferation and inflammation suppression. Rapamycin (Rapa) inhibits mTOR, resulting in inhibition of autophagy and inflammatory cell proliferation. BAY inhibits NF-κB, resulting in inhibition of TNF-α and autophagy. And infliximab inhibits TNF-α, resulting in autophagy inhibition. Conversely, CQ inhibits autophagy flux, resulting in suppression of NF-κB expression.