Pharmacological MET concentrations alleviated LPS-induced NLRP3 inflammasome formation and trophoblastic pyroptosis. (a) CCK-8 assays of HTR-8/SVneo cells treated with the indicated concentration of MET for 24 h. (b, c) Flow cytometry assays and quantitative analysis were performed to determine the apoptotic rates in HTR-8/SVneo cells treated with the indicated MET concentration for 24 h. (d–h) Western blot analysis of NLRP3, caspase1-p10, GSDMD, and ASC protein expression and densitometry quantification of NLRP3 (e), caspase1-p10 (f), GSDMD (g), and ASC (h) levels in HTR-8/SVneo cells were cultured with 200 ng/ml LPS and MET at different concentrations, respectively (10, 20, 30, and 40 μM). (i, j) ELISA analysis of IL-1β (i) and IL-18 (j) concentrations in cell culture medium. Data are shown as the mean ± SD from three independent experiments. ns: not significant compared with the Con group. ∗∗P < 0.01 compared with the Con group. #P < 0.05 compared with the LPS group. ##P < 0.01 compared with the LPS group by Student's t-test. SD: standard deviation.