Silencing of TLR4 Inhibits Atrial Fibrosis and Susceptibility to Atrial Fibrillation via Downregulation of NLRP3-TGF-β in Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats

Figure 6

Silencing of TLR4 inhibited proliferation of cardiac fibroblasts (CFs). (a) CF morphology was observed by transmission light microscopy (100x) and immunofluorescence was used to identify vimentin expressed in CFs (100x). (b) CFs were treated with different concentrations of Ang II, and cell proliferation was evaluated using a CCK-8 assay kit (). (c) The effect of TLR4-shRNA on proliferation of cardiac fibroblasts measured by CCK-8 (). (d) The concentration of IL-1β in cell culture supernatants was detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) (). (e) The concentration of IL-18 in cell culture supernatants was detected by ELISA (). Data are expressed as . Statistical analyses: values were evaluated by ANOVA, followed by a post hoc Tukey’s test. , , and versus the control; ^#, ^##, and ^### versus the SHR group; ^&, ^&&, and ^&&& versus the SHR+vehicle group; significantly different as indicated.

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