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Updated: Jun 13, 2025

Detection of Inflammasome Activation and Pyroptotic Cell Death in Murine Bone Marrow-derived Macrophages
Published on: May 21, 2018
Inflammasome components as new therapeutic targets in inflammatory disease
Rebecca C Coll1, Kate Schroder2
1Wellcome-Wolfson Institute for Experimental Medicine, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, UK. R.Coll@qub.ac.uk.
Abstract:
Inflammation drives pathology in many human diseases for which there are no disease-modifying drugs. Inflammasomes are signalling platforms that can induce pathological inflammation and tissue damage, having potential as an exciting new class of drug targets. Small-molecule inhibitors of the NLRP3 inflammasome that are now in clinical trials have demonstrated proof of concept that inflammasomes are druggable, and so drug development programmes are now focusing on other key inflammasome molecules. In this Review, we describe the potential of inflammasome components as candidate drug targets and the novel inflammasome inhibitors that are being developed. We discuss how the signalling biology of inflammasomes offers mechanistic insights for therapeutic targeting. We also discuss the major scientific and technical challenges associated with drugging these molecules during preclinical development and clinical trials.
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