Effect of caspase inhibitors

Treatment of caspase-3 inhibitor Z-DEVD-FMK, caspase-8 inhibitor Z-IETD-FMK, or general inhibitor Z-VAD-FMK (BD Bioscience, Franklin Lakes, NJ, USA) was performed according to a previous report (Huang et al. 2012) with minor modifications. Briefly, 0.3–0.6 × 10⁶ cells were seeded in a 6-well plate and transfected with DLEC1 siRNA or control siRNA (scramble, SCR). 24 h post-transfection, cells were treated with control or caspase inhibitors (40 μM each) for 1 h. 72 h post-transfection, cell death was assessed by flow cytometry.