Legionella pneumophila (L. pneumophila), the causative agent of a severe form of pneumonia called Legionnaires' disease, replicates in human monocytes and macrophages. Most inbred mouse strains are restrictive to L. pneumophila infection except for the A/J, Nlrc4(-/-) (Ipaf(-/-)), and caspase-1(-/-) derived macrophages. Particularly, caspase-1 activation is detected during L. pneumophila infect...

•Carnivorans lack key NLRs and express a unique caspase-1/-4 hybrid protein•This protein is defective in mediating activation of common inflammasome pathways•What little activity occurs driven by caspase-8, rather than Zoonotic pathogens, such as COVID-19, reside animal hosts before jumping species to infect humans. The Carnivora, like mink, carry many zoonoses, yet how diversity host immune ge...

BACKGROUND/AIMS Caspases, an evolutionary conserved family of aspartate-specific cystein proteases, play pivotal roles in apoptotic and inflammatory signaling. Thus far, 14 mammalian caspases are identified and categorized into 3 distinct sub-types: inflammatory caspases, apoptotic initiator and apoptotic executioner. Caspase-1 is an inflammatory caspase, while caspase-7 belongs to apoptotic ex...

Endotoxin administration recapitulates many of the host responses to sepsis. Inhibitors of the cysteine protease caspase 1 have long been sought as a therapeutic because mice lacking caspase 1 are resistant to LPS-induced endotoxic shock. According to current thinking, caspase 1-mediated shock requires the proinflammatory caspase 1 substrates IL-1β and IL-18. We show, however, that mice lacking...

Exit of cytochrome c from mitochondria into the cytosol has been implicated as an important step in apoptosis. In the cytosol, cytochrome c binds to the CED-4 homologue, Apaf-1, thereby triggering Apaf-1-mediated activation of caspase-9. Caspase-9 is thought to propagate the death signal by triggering other caspase activation events, the details of which remain obscure. Here, we report that six...

OBJECTIVE The role of receptors for endogenous metabolic danger signals-associated molecular patterns has been characterized recently as bridging innate immune sensory systems for danger signals-associated molecular patterns to initiation of inflammation in bone marrow-derived cells, such as macrophages. However, it remains unknown whether endothelial cells (ECs), the cell type with the largest...

Platycodin D is an active component isolated from Chinese herb Platycodonis radix with various pharmacological activities, such as antitussive, expectorant, anti-inflammatory, and analgesic effects. Interestingly, platycodin also exerts anticancer effects against several types of cancer. However, few studies on the anti-tumour urinary bladder cancer have been reported. In this study, we explore...

background and aims. there is no report on the apoptotic impact of allium sativum l. (garlic) on the oral squamous cell carcinoma (kb); hence, this study was designed to survey the apoptotic effects of garlic fresh juice (gfj) on the kb cells. materials and methods. mtt assay (microculture tetrazolium assay) was carried out to evaluate the cytotoxicity of gfj on kb cells. furthermore, tunel (te...

the present study aimed to evaluate the protective effect of gallic acid on gastric mucosal lesions caused by ischemia-reperfusion (i/r) injury in rat. forty male rats were randomly divided into sham, control (i/r injury) and three gallic acid-pretreated groups. to induce i/r lesions, the celiac artery was clamped for 30 min and then the clamp was removed to allow reperfusion for 6 hr. pretreat...