Fig. 6

NLRP3 activation in liver macrophages on development of murine autochthonous HCC. A The bar graph (median with IQR) shows tumour numbers in variated sizes of different plasmid-injected mice fed the HF diet, n = 5–7. Images show the representative mouse livers with different diets after injection of empty-vector and mtPreS2. The others are in Additional file 1: Fig. S13. B FCM profiles of liver inflammatory macrophages isolated from tumour-free liver tissues in the group of mice that were injected with mtPreS2-plasmid and fed with indicated diets. C Bar graphs (mean ± SEM) show the IL-1β and IL-18 levels in the liver intercellular fluid of each mouse. D Intrahepatic cells were purified through 25%/50% Percoll gradient centrifugation, pooled together from one group of mice with same treatment for determination of NLRP3 and the cleaved caspase-1 (p20) by immunoblotting. Bar graphs show the relative amount of specified proteins. E DEN-injected mice received 6 μg of mtPreS2 plasmids. One week later, the mice (receipts) were irradiated with 4 Gy of X-ray for depletion of host immune cells. One subgroup of receipts obtained bone marrow (BM) cells from the Nlrp3^−/− mice, and another obtained BM cells from C57BL/6J (WT). Different diets began at their 8 weeks old until 28 weeks old. Bar graphs (median with IQR) show the tumour numbers in variated sizes fed the NC diet (upper panel) or HF diet (low panel), n = 5, each dot represents one mouse. Tumour numbers in differently treated mice (A, E) were compared with the Mann-Whitney U test. The concentration of cytokines in the mouse livers with different treatments was compared with the one-way ANOVA analysis. ^$P < 0.05, ^$$P < 0.01, ^$$$P < 0.001 between Ref-HBV and empty-vector; *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001 between Ref-HBV and mtPreS1 or mtPreS2 or between WT and Nlrp3^−/−. n.s. no statistical difference