Figure 4. ROS inhibition reduces lytic cell death and pyroptosis. HepG2 cells were pretreated with NAC for 30 min and then, treated with curcumin for 12 h. (A) Morphological changes and pyroptosis were observed using fluorescence microscopy of PI (red)- and Hoechst (blue)-stained HepG2 cells treated with curcumin (30 μM) (scale bar=100 μm). (B) Bcl-2, Bax, pro-caspase3, GSDME-Full, and GSDME-N protein expression was detected using western blot analysis in HepG2 cells treated with curcumin. (C) Quantitative analysis of Bcl-2, pro-caspase3, and GSDME-N protein expression presented as the mean±SEM of three different samples (*p<0.05, **p <0.01, ***p<0.001).