Curcumin Ameliorates Diabetic Nephropathy by Suppressing NLRP3 Inflammasome Signaling

Figure 5

Curcumin inhibited the high glucose-induced increases in fibronectin and NLRP3 expression and NLRP3 inflammasome activation in HK-2 cells as assessed using Western blot analysis. HK-2 cells were assigned to four groups: (1) normal glucose (NG); (2) high glucose (HG); (3) curcumin (Cur); and (4) osmotic control with mannitol (OC). (a) Fibronectin protein expression in HK-2 cells exposed to 35 mM glucose for 48 h with or without different doses of curcumin. (b) NLRP3 protein expression in HK-2 cells treated with 35 mM glucose for 48 h and 10 μM curcumin. (c, d) Cleaved caspase-1 p20 and 17 kD mature interleukin-1β (IL-1β) in culture supernatants. β-Actin was used as the internal loading control. , compared with the 5 mM glucose (NG) group; , compared with the 35 mM (HG) group. The average values from three independent experiments are shown.

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