Fig. 4

ERAP2 regulates Caspase-1 activation in synovial T cells. A NCG mice engrafted with human synovial tissue were reconstituted with CD4⁺ T cells from controls or RA patients and ERAP2 was silenced in CD4⁺ T cells before transfer. The synovial grafts were explanted for imaging analysis. The illustrations were created with Figdraw.com. B Immunofluorescence staining of cleaved Caspase-1 (red) and CD3 (green) in synovial tissue harvested from humanized NCG mice. The right panels show higher-magnification views of the boxed areas in the left panels. Scale bars: 50 μm. C Percentages of CD3 + cleaved Caspase-1 + T cells (n = 3). D Tissue transcriptome analysis of inflammation-related genes by RT‒qPCR (n = 3). TNFA, IL6 and IL1B are proinflammatory genes. IL10 and TGFB1 are anti-inflammatory genes. All data are the mean ± SD. Statistical significance was determined by one-way ANOVA followed by Bonferroni’s multiple-comparisons test for multigroup comparisons; *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, ****p < 0.0001. NC, normal control; RA, rheumatoid arthritis