Sections were treated with 10% bovine serum albumin in PBS for 1 h at room temperature, incubated overnight at 4°C with p50 (1∶250, Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Santa Cruz, CA), p65 (1∶250, Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Santa Cruz, CA), Bax (1∶200 dilution), cleaved caspase-3 (1∶100), CD8 (1∶10), CD57 (1∶50) and IL-1Ra (1∶500) antibodies, followed by incubation in anti-mouse IgG conjugated with Alexa 488 (1∶100 dilution, Molecular Probes, Eugene, OR, USA) and anti-rabbit IgG conjugated with Alexa 568 (1∶100 dilution, Molecular Probes) for 40 min at room temperature. Finally, the sections were rinsed, mounted on slides, and cover-slipped for fluorescence microscopy and photography using ApoTome microscopy (Carl Zeiss, Thornwood, NY, USA).