Fig. 4

Silencing of Sox4 markedly suppressed proliferation and NLRP3 inflammasome activation in IL-6-treated OSCC cells. shCTRL and shSox4 were constructed and transfected into SCC-15 and SCC-25 cells, which were also disposed of 25 ng/ml IL-6. RT-qPCR (A) and Western blot (B) displayed the change in Sox4 expression. Cell proliferation was confirmed with (C) CCK-8, (D) EdU staining and (E) colony formation. (F) Western blot was adopted to verify the expression changes of inflammation-related proteins. (G) The changes of IL-1β and IL-18 levels were also evaluated with ELISA kits. *** P < 0.001 vs. IL-6 group; ## P < 0.01, ### P < 0.001 vs. IL-6 + shCTRL group. CTRL, control