Fig. 3

Priming and activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome in astrocytes exposed to breast cancer cell-secreted factors. a Upregulation of NLRP3, CASP1 and IL1B gene expression in human astrocytes cultured for 24 h in human TNBC cell-conditioned medium. Graphs represent the fold change (normalized to GAPDH), average ± SEM (N = 3 independent experiments, each performed in triplicate). **P ≤ 0.01, ****P ≤ 0.0001 compared to control (HA), ^####P ≤ 0.0001 compared to HA + MDA-TGL CM (ANOVA and Fisher’s LSD post hoc test). b Representative immunofluorescence micrographs (maximum intensity projections of z-stacks) showing upregulation of NLRP3 protein expression in human astrocytes cultured for 24 h in human TNBC cell-conditioned medium. c Representative immunofluorescence micrographs (maximum intensity projections of z-stacks) showing a perinuclear NLRP3- and ASC-positive speck-like structure (marked with an arrow) in a human astrocyte from a culture kept for 24 h in brain metastatic human TNBC cell-conditioned medium. d Magnification of the speck from image c ASC: STED image