Basic science for the clinician 51: the inflammasome

The innate immune system is packaged in a number of discrete, but intercommunicating, systems. The inflammasome is a multimolecular complex that detects intracellular foreign molecules of a variety of sorts and promptly promotes the secretion of IL-1β and IL-18. When all goes well, defense of the organism in the early period of infection is enhanced by this system; when certain elements of the inflammasomal systems go awry, inflammatory diseases of a variety of sorts result. A family of multimolecular detection systems are activated at times of infection and tissue damage; it is the dysfunction of this innate immune defense system that intrigues rheumatologists, as this is the cause of a series of newly described autoinflammatory diseases.