NLRP3 Inflammasome Simultaneously Involved in Autophagy and Phagocytosis of THP-1 Cells to Clear Aged Erythrocytes

Figure 2

Results of autophagic flux in different THP-1 cells cocultured with three groups of RBCs. (a) Merge photograph of THP-1 cells stably expresses the mRFP-GFP-LC3 fusion protein after different stimulations. The left column shows the imaging results of the fluorescence inverted microscope (200×), whereas the right column presents the results of the confocal microscope (1,000×). The rapamycin group was the autophagy positive control. Each image of the confocal microscope showed one to two THP-1 cells. Compared with wild-type and shNC THP-1 cells, ID3 THP-1 cells demonstrated additional yellow dots when ID3 THP-1 received the same stimulation or engulfed the same treated RBCs. A large number of THP-1 cells can be displayed in the field of the fluorescence inverted microscope. Additional yellow cells were displayed in ID3 THP-1 cell groups. (b) Histograms of red cell rates of different RBCs engulfed by three groups of THP-1 cells. (c)–(e) Histograms of red cell rates of three different THP-1 cells to the same RBCs. , , ns: not significant.

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