CatB deficiency reduced while cystatin C deficiency increased the activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome induced by CVB3 infection.

(A) Western blot analysis of the expression of the components of the inflammasome including NLRP3, ASC, caspase-1 p-20 in hearts from mice receiving different treatments. (B) Cardiac caspase-1 activity was determined by a commercial assay kit and presented as fold change compared with the WT mice receiving DMEM. (C) Compared with WT+CVB3 group, CatB deficiency significantly decreased the serum IL-1β level while cystatin C deletion increased the level of IL-1β. (WT group: n = 10; WT+CVB3 group: n = 14; Ctsb^-/-+CVB3 group: n = 12; Cstc^-/-+CVB3 group: n = 11; **P<0.01 vs. WT group; ***P<0.001 vs. WT group; #P<0.05 vs. WT+CVB3 group; ##P<0.01 vs. WT+CVB3 group; ###P<0.001 vs. WT+CVB3 group; &&P<0.01 vs. Ctsb^-/-+CVB3 group; &&&P<0.001 vs. Ctsb^-/-+CVB3 group).