Apoptozole

VER-155008, Mizoribine, and MG132 were purchased from Cayman Chemicals, Tokyo Chemical Industry, and Chemscene, respectively. Apoptozole and Gossypol were purchased from MedChemExpress LLC.

TRC051384 (termed as heat shock protein 70(HSP70) agonist, catalog no. HY-101712) and apoptozole (termed as HSP70 inhibitor; catalog no. HY-15098) were purchased from MedChemExpress (New Jersey, USA). Rabbit monoclonal antibodies against PCSK9 (catalog no. 85813) for western blotting, HSP70(catalog no. 4873), p38 (catalog no. 8690), phosphorylated (p)−p38(catalog no. 9215), extracellular signal−regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2; catalog no. 4695), p−ERK1/2 (catalog no. 4370), c−Jun N−terminal kinase (JNK; catalog no. 9252), and p−JNK (catalog no. 9251) were acquired from Cell Signaling Technology (Danvers, MA, USA). Rabbit monoclonal antibody against PCSK9 (catalog no. ab28770) for immunohistochemistry, immunoprecipitation and immunofluorescence was purchased from Abcam (Cambridge, MA, USA). Mouse monoclonal antibody against β−actin (AA128) was purchased from Biotime Biotechnology Co. Ltd. (Shanghai, China).

All of the stock solutions (Ce6 [J&K Scientific, Ltd.], apoptozole [MedChemExpress, USA], and nonactin [MKbio, China]) were prepared in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO; Biofroxx, Germany) and stored at −80°C in the dark. A laser (LWRPD-1.5F, Laserwave Co., Ltd., China) with red light (660 nm) was chosen as the light source.