Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 Feb 28;434(4):167278.
doi: 10.1016/j.jmb.2021.167278. Epub 2021 Oct 8.

Epithelial Pyroptosis in Host Defense

Madeline J Churchill  1 , Patrick S Mitchell  2 , Isabella Rauch  3
Affiliations
Review

Epithelial Pyroptosis in Host Defense

Madeline J Churchill et al. J Mol Biol. .

Abstract

Pyroptosis is a lytic form of cell death that is executed by a family of pore-forming proteins called gasdermins (GSDMs). GSDMs are activated upon proteolysis by host proteases including the proinflammatory caspases downstream of inflammasome activation. In myeloid cells, GSDM pore formation serves two primary functions in host defense: the selective release of processed cytokines to initiate inflammatory responses, and cell death, which eliminates a replicative niche of the pathogen. Barrier epithelia also undergo pyroptosis. However, unique mechanisms are required for the removal of pyroptotic epithelial cells to maintain epithelial barrier integrity. In the following review, we discuss the role of epithelial inflammasomes and pyroptosis in host defense against pathogens. We use the well-established role of inflammasomes in intestinal epithelia to highlight principles of epithelial pyroptosis in host defense of barrier tissues, and discuss how these principles might be shared or distinctive across other epithelial sites.

Keywords: epithelial cell; gasdermin; infection; inflammasome; pyroptosis.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of interests

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

References

    1. Fuchs Y, Steller H, Live to die another way: Modes of programmed cell death and the signals emanating from dying cells, Nat. Rev. Mol. Cell Biol 16 (2015). 10.1038/nrm3999. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Broz P, Pelegrín P, Shao F, The gasdermins, a protein family executing cell death and inflammation, Nat. Rev. Immunol 20 (2020). 10.1038/s41577-019-0228-2. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Kesavardhana S, Malireddi RKS, Kanneganti TD, Caspases in Cell Death, Inflammation, and Pyroptosis, Annu. Rev. Immunol 38 (2020). 10.1146/annurev-immunol-073119-095439. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Vance RE, Isberg RR, Portnoy DA, Patterns of Pathogenesis: Discrimination of Pathogenic and Nonpathogenic Microbes by the Innate Immune System, Cell Host Microbe. 6 (2009) 10–21. 10.1016/j.chom.2009.06.007. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Barton GM, Medzhitov R, Toll-like receptor signaling pathways, Science (80-.). 300 (2003). 10.1126/science.1085536. - DOI - PubMed

Substances

LinkOut - more resources