Fig. 7: Effects of ELA on the ROS production and NLRP3 imflammasome activation are independent of APJ.

APJ knockdown was conducted by the transfection of plasmid pWHAPJg into HK2 cells and confirmed by RT-PCR. Then the HK2 cells with APJ knockdown were pretreated with ELA peptide (1 nM) for 1 h and then treated by Aldosterone (0.1 µM) for 24 h. a Representative immunoblots of APJ in renal cortex and medulla and summarized intensities of blots. b mRNA levels of APJ in HK2 cells with or without APJ knockdown. c ROS production in HK2 cells with APJ knockdown. d, e Representative confocal fluorescent images of co-localization (yellow) between Nlrp3 (green)/Caspase-1 (red) and summarized co-localization coefficient in HK2 cells with APJ knockdown. Scale bar, 10 µm. N = 6 per group. *P < 0.05 versus Ctrl group; #P < 0.05 versus DOCA/salt group.