Apoptosis and inflammasome regulation

Several different forms of programmed cell death have been identified over the last 2 decades. Among these are apoptosis, which is a nonlytic and supposedly immunologically silent for of death, and pyroptosis, a form of programmed necrosis induced by inflammatory caspases upon inflammasome activation. While these forms of cell death were initially thought to act independently of one another, emerging evidence suggests that there is extensive crosstalk between the two of them. The physiological function of this crosstalk is only emerging, but it appears to be important in antitumor immunity and host defense against viral and bacterial pathogens. This chapter will focus on the crosstalk between apoptosis and inflammasomes, the induction of gasdermin-dependent pyroptosis as a common outcome of apoptosis and inflammasome activation, as well as the function of this new signaling axis in vivo.