Spotlight on macrophage pyroptosis: A bibliometric and visual analysis from 2001 to 2023

Abstract

Macrophage pyroptosis plays a significant role in the pathogenesis of various diseases, especially acute lung injury, atherosclerosis, and sepsis. Despite its importance, analysis of the existing literature has been limited. Therefore, we conducted a bibliometric analysis to provide a comprehensive overview of research on macrophage pyroptosis and identify the current research foci and trends in this field. We collected articles related to macrophage pyroptosis published between 2001 and 2022 from the Web of Science Core Collection and PubMed. Citespace, VOSviewer, bibliometrix R package, and Microsoft Excel 2019 were used to analyze co-occurrence relationships and the contribution of countries/regions, institutions, journals, authors, references, and keywords. In total, 1321 papers were included. China and the United States of America published the most articles in this field. TD Kanneganti had the most publications; BT Cookson was the most cited. Although China contributed the most publications, it had a relatively low ratio of multiple-country collaborations (0.132). Among journals, Frontiers in Immunology and Cell Death Disease published the most papers; Nature and the Journal of Immunology were frequently co-cited. Frequently occurring keywords included "inflammation," "NLRP3 inflammasome," "apoptosis," "caspase-1," and "cell death." Moreover, with the advancement of gene editing technology and the integration of clinical applications, novel molecules ("caspases," "GSDMD," "ASC"), programmed cell death topics ("pyroptosis," "ferroptosis," "necrosis"), and clinical applications ("alveolar macrophage," "atherosclerosis," "prognosis") emerged as frontiers. The macrophage pyroptosis field is rapidly evolving and holds promise as a potential target for treating macrophage pyroptosis-related diseases.

Fig. 1

Flowchart of article selection.

Fig. 2

(A) Annual publications on macrophage pyroptosis. (B) Distribution of the corresponding authors' countries and collaboration. (C) Chord plot of cooperation between the top 30 countries. MCP: multiple country publication; SCP: single country publication.

Fig. 3

Cluster analysis of publications from different institutions from 2001 to 2022. (A) Cluster analysis of publications from different institutions (n ≥ 20). (B) Top 10 institutions with citation bursts in macrophage pyroptosis research. Red bars represent the citation burst level; blue bars represent published references.

Fig. 4

Network maps of the journals with >5 publications(A) and with >100 co-citations(B).

Fig. 5

(A) Diagram of the references related to macrophage pyroptosis (n ≥ 60). (B) Co-citation of the references.

Fig. 6

Top 20 references with citation bursts in macrophage pyroptosis research. Red bars represent the citation burst level; blue bars represent published references.

Fig. 7

Highlights of this study. (A) Word cloud of keywords from the included studies. (B) Tree map of specific keywords in accordance with the word-cloud diagram.

Fig. 8

Research foci in macrophage pyroptosis: keyword evolution. (A) Keyword evolution during different periods. (B) Thematic map of keywords, focusing on centrality and density. The thematic map has four quadrants: niche themes, emerging or declining themes, motor themes, and basic themes.

Fig. 9

Heatmap of keywords.

Fig. 10

A chord plot of macrophage pyroptosis and various diseases.