NIC-12

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced endotoxemia is a widely used in vivo model of acute systemic inflammation in which LPS, a Gram-negative bacterial endotoxin, activates innate immune signaling primarily through TLR4, leading to rapid and transient induction of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-1β in circulation and tissues. This cytokine surge is commonly used as a measurable readout of systemic inflammatory activation and immune dysregulation, and is typically assessed within hours after intraperitoneal LPS administration in mouse models of endotoxemia. The model captures key features of systemic inflammatory response syndrome, including cytokine release, immune cell activation, and downstream tissue responses, and has been used to evaluate anti-inflammatory interventions such as cytokine modulation, lipid mediators, and immune cell-targeting therapies.

Pyroptosis is a lytic inflammatory cell-death pathway executed by gasdermin pores, most classically through inflammasome-mediated activation of caspase-1, cleavage of gasdermin D, membrane pore formation, LDH release, and secretion of IL-1β and IL-18. The canonical pathway is commonly modeled by priming cells with an inflammatory signal such as LPS to induce pro-IL-1β and inflammasome components, followed by an activation signal such as ATP or nigericin to activate NLRP3, ASC speck formation, caspase-1 cleavage, GSDMD cleavage, cytokine release, and pyroptotic membrane rupture. The non-canonical pathway is triggered when cytosolic LPS activates mouse caspase-11 or human caspase-4/5, leading to GSDMD cleavage and pyroptosis, and this can secondarily activate NLRP3-dependent IL-1β release. Pyroptosis is linked to inflammatory injury, infection, cancer, liver disease, ocular disease, placental inflammation, and other disease phenotypes, but unresolved questions include which gasdermin fam