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
. 2023:2641:1-16.
doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-3040-2_1.

Molecular Mechanisms of Pyroptosis

Marisa J Anderson  1 , Andreas B den Hartigh  1 , Susan L Fink  2
Affiliations
Review

Molecular Mechanisms of Pyroptosis

Marisa J Anderson et al. Methods Mol Biol. 2023.

Abstract

Pyroptosis is a regulated form of cell death that leads to inflammation and plays a role in many different diseases. Pyroptosis was initially defined by the dependence on caspase-1, a protease which is activated by innate immune signaling complexes called inflammasomes. Caspase-1 cleaves the protein gasdermin D, releasing the N-terminal pore-forming domain, which inserts into the plasma membrane. Recent studies have revealed that other gasdermin family members form plasma membrane pores, leading to lytic cell death, and the definition of pyroptosis was revised to gasdermin-dependent cell death. In this review, we discuss how the use of the term pyroptosis has changed over time, as well as currently understood molecular mechanisms leading to pyroptosis and functional consequences of this form of regulated cell death.

Keywords: ASC; Gasdermin; Inflammasome; Macrophage; Pyroptosis; Regulated cell death.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Elmore S (2007) Apoptosis: a review of programmed cell death. Toxicol Pathol 35(4):495–516. https://doi.org/10.1080/01926230701320337 - DOI - PubMed - PMC
    1. Kerr JF, Wyllie AH, Currie AR (1972) Apoptosis: a basic biological phenomenon with wide-ranging implications in tissue kinetics. Br J Cancer 26(4):239–257. https://doi.org/10.1038/bjc.1972.33 - DOI - PubMed - PMC
    1. Fink SL, Cookson BT (2005) Apoptosis, pyroptosis, and necrosis: mechanistic description of dead and dying eukaryotic cells. Infect Immun 73(4):1907–1916. https://doi.org/10.1128/IAI.73.4.1907-1916.2005 - DOI - PubMed - PMC
    1. Julien O, Wells JA (2017) Caspases and their substrates. Cell Death Differ 24(8):1380–1389. https://doi.org/10.1038/cdd.2017.44 - DOI - PubMed - PMC
    1. Cookson BT, Brennan MA (2001) Pro-inflammatory programmed cell death. Trends Microbiol 9(3):113–114. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0966-842x(00)01936-3 - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources