Fig. 1

Changes in calpain 1–NLRP3/cas-1–GSDMD pathway in the hippocampus of PISE mice. (A) The inactive/total calpain 1 ratio markedly decreased (independent-samples t test, t = 9.42, P < 0.01) while the inactive/total calpain 2 ratio did not change (independent-samples t test, t = − 0.16, P = 0.87) in the hippocampus of PISE mice. (B) The protein levels of NLRP3 (Mann–Whitney U test, P < 0.01), c-cas-1 (Mann–Whitney U test, P < 0.01), IL-1β (Mann–Whitney U test, P < 0.01), and N-GSDMD (Mann–Whitney U test, P < 0.01) increased markedly in the hippocampus of PISE mice. (C) The number of GSDMD⁺ cells (red arrow) increased markedly in the hippocampus in PISE mice (independent-samples t test, t = − 18.01, P < 0.01). (D) GSDMD⁺/NeuN⁺ (D-i, white arrow), GSDMD⁺/GFAP⁺ (D-ii, white star) and GSDMD⁺/Iba-1⁺ (D-iii, white triangle) cells in the hippocampus of control and PISE mice. Scale = 50 μm. ×4 objective for the top row in D-i, D-ii and D-iii; ×10 objective for C-DAPI, C-GSDMD, C-Merge; ×20 objective for C-enlarge and the down row in D-i, D-ii and D-iii. **P < 0.01 vs. control