Fig. 2

Increasing NLRP7 expression with in-vitro decidualization of T-HESCs. T-HESCs were treated with 1 μM MPA and 0.5 mM 8-Br-cAMP on day 0 and day 3 to induce decidualization. Untreated cells served as the control. a The cell morphology was evaluated using microscopy. The PRL and IGFBP-1 transcripts were detected by qRT-PCR on day 3 and day 6. The treated cells displayed a swollen phenotype and produced more transcripts of two decidual markers, compared with the untreated cells. b The NLRP7 transcript and protein in the treated or untreated cells was detected by qRT-PCR and Western blotting, respectively, on day 3 and day 6. The NLRP7 transcript amount is shown in fold changes. Both NLRP7 transcript amount and protein level were significantly higher in treated cells than in untreated cells. In the treated cells, the NLRP7 transcript and protein level were also higher on day 6 than on day 3. The expressions of both NLRP7 isoforms were higher in the treated cells. The statistical differences were calculated from three independent experiments. p-values less than 0.05 are marked with “*”