Fig. 6

A–C Histograms displaying the relative level of A) MHC-II, B) CD86, C) CD80 in in vitro cultured DCs exposed to saline (control) or 33% Cu-doped TiO₂ NPs. D Western blot of in vitro cultured DCs exposed to saline (control) or 33% Cu-doped TiO₂ NPs and analyzed for the expression level of NLRP3 and GAPDH as a housekeeping control. E Histogram showing the amount of IL1β released by in vitro cultured DCs either exposed to saline (control), 33% Cu-doped TiO₂ NPs or a positive control of LPS + ATP. F Histogram displaying the viability of in vitro cultured DCs exposed to 33% Cu-doped TiO₂ expressed relative to the viability of untreated DCs. G, H Histogram showing G) the amount of IL1β released or H) MHC-II levels by in vitro cultured DCs either exposed to saline (control) or 33% Cu-doped TiO₂ NPs in the presence of NLRP3-inhibitor MCC950. I, J Histograms indicating the level of I) IL12 and J) IL23 secreted by in vitro cultured DCs exposed to saline (vehicle control), 33% Cu-doped TiO₂ NPs or positive controls (100 ng/ml IL1β for I) and 300 µM wortmanin for J)). K–N Histograms indicating intracellular cytokine levels indicative of Th17 cell types obtained from tumor samples either treated with vehicle control (saline) or 33% Cu-doped TiO₂ NPs for K) IL17A, L) IL17F, M) IL21, N) IL22. These data are expressed as the level of cytokine-positive lymphocytes relative to the total number of lymphocytes. Significant differences between a treated group and untreated controls at the same time point are indicated where relevant (p < 0.05: *, p < 0.01: **; p < 0.001: ***; p < 0.0001: ****) based on ANOVA testing using GraphPad Prism 9 (n = 6)