Fig. 1

High-salt intake predisposes atherosclerosis and upregulates NLRP3 expression. a Schematic shows the process of atherosclerosis formation. b Oil Red O staining of aortas and quantification of percentage lesion areas in the thoracic aorta (TA) and aortic arch (AA) of ApoE^−/− mice (n = 10) fed with a normal or high-salt diet for 12 weeks. c Immunohistochemistry staining for NLRP3 and CD31 in the kidney at 4 weeks. Nuclei, hematoxylin staining. d En face immunofluorescent staining of NLRP3 of ECs in TA and AA of ApoE−/− mice fed with a normal or high-salt diet for 4 weeks. See Additional file 1: Figure S1D for NLRP3 mRNA qPCR. All data were presented as mean ± SEM, N ≥ 9. *p < 0.05