Fig. 3.

Endothelial NLRP3 inflammasome activation in the carotid arteries of EC-specific Smpd1 transgenic mice during hypercholesterolemia. A: Representative fluorescent confocal microscope images displaying the yellow dots or patches showing the colocalization of FLICA (green) with vWF (red). B: The summarized data show the colocalization coefficient of FLICA with vWF. C: Representative microscopic images of tissue slide with immunohistochemical staining that shows IL-1β accumulation on the arterial wall. D: Summarized data showing the density of IL-1β stained with selective anti-IL-1β antibody. Data are expressed as means ± SEM, n = 5. ∗P < 0.05 is defined as significant. The scale bar represents 20 μm or 200 μm for A and 100 μm for C.