Female Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats aged 12–16 weeks and weighing 220 g were purchased from Beijing Vital River Laboratory Animal Technology Co., Ltd. The pulp of the bilateral upper and lower first molars was exposed to the oral environment using a #1/4 dental round bur [27 (link)]. Rats in each group were anaesthetized after 1~4 weeks. Caspase-1 inhibitor VX765 [27 (link)] (50 mg/kg; Biochempartner, Hangzhou, China) and caspase-11 inhibitor Wedelolactone [28 (link)] (Wed, 4 mg/kg; Biochempartner) dissolved in 20% cremophor (Sigma-Aldrich, Shanghai, China) were intraperitoneally injected once a day for 14 consecutive days since week 1 [29 (link)] (caspase-1/11 was activated in apical region at week 1). All rats were anaesthetized at 4 weeks after pulp exposure, and the mandibles and maxilla were fixed with 4% paraformaldehyde at 4 °C for 72 h. Next, the mandibles and maxilla were stored in 75% ethanol prior to microcomputed tomography (micro-CT) scanning. Then, the specimens were rinsed and decalcified with 10% ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid for 12 weeks, dehydrated and embedded in paraffin. Serial sections of 5 μm thickness were cut in the mesiodistal direction for further experiments [30 (link)]. More experimental details can be found in Supplementary S1 .
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