Measurement of Inflammasome-Induced Mitochondrial Dysfunction by Flow Cytometry

A growing body of work has recently highlighted the pivotal role of mitochondria in the initiation and modulation of inflammasome activation. Specifically, mitochondrial dysfunction can induce NLRP3 inflammasome activation, where loss of mitochondrial potential leads to production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and release of Ca²⁺, which in turn trigger inflammasome assembly. Therefore, several measures of mitochondrial parameters and components are routinely utilized in studies assessing mechanisms of inflammasome activation. In this chapter, we show detailed protocols on how to employ flow cytometry using three distinct mitochondria-specific dyes to measure mitochondrial ROS (MitoSOX), mitochondrial respiration (Mitotracker deep red), and total mitochondria (Mitotracker green), as well as a dye that measures reduced glutathione (mBBr ).