Inflammasome: structure, biological functions, and therapeutic targets

Inflammasomes are a group of protein complex located in cytoplasm and assemble in response to a wide variety of pathogen-associated molecule patterns, damage-associated molecule patterns, and cellular stress. Generally, the activation of inflammasomes will lead to maturation of proinflammatory cytokines and pyroptotic cell death, both associated with inflammatory cascade amplification. A sensor protein, an adaptor, and a procaspase protein interact through their functional domains and compose one subunit of inflammasome complex. Under physiological conditions, inflammasome functions against pathogen infection and endogenous dangers including mtROS, mtDNA, and so on, while dysregulation of its activation can lead to unwanted results. In recent years, advances have been made to clarify the mechanisms of inflammasome activation, the structural details of them and their functions (negative/positive) in multiple disease models in both animal models and human. The wide range of the stimuli makes the function of inflammasome diverse and complex. Here, we review the structure, biological functions, and therapeutic targets of inflammasomes, while highlight NLRP3, NLRC4, and AIM2 inflammasomes, which are the most well studied. In conclusion, this review focuses on the activation process, biological functions, and structure of the most well-studied inflammasomes, summarizing and predicting approaches for disease treatment and prevention with inflammasome as a target. We aim to provide fresh insight into new solutions to the challenges in this field.