Functional Materials Targeted Regulation of Gasdermins: From Fundamentals to Functionalities and Applications

Targeted regulation of pyroptosis to modulate the immune landscape has emerged as a novel design strategy for cancer immunotherapy and anti-inflammatory therapy. However, pyroptosis acts as a double-edged sword, making it important to optimize the design strategies of functional materials to appropriately activate pyroptosis for effective disease treatment. This paper summarizes and discusses the structure, pore formation, and molecular mechanisms of "executor" Gasdermins, as well as the events preceding and following these processes. Subsequently, the focus is on reviewing functional materials that directly regulate Gasdermin pore formation to target pyroptosis and those that indirectly regulate the events before and after Gasdermin pore formation to control pyroptosis activity. Finally, the advantages, disadvantages, and future prospects of designing such functional materials are provided, aiming to facilitate the precise design, pharmacological investigation, and clinical translation of pyroptosis-related functional materials.