{"doi":"10.17615/gmac-xa78","title":"Cutting Edge: Inflammasome Activation by Alum and Alum's Adjuvant Effect Are Mediated by NLRP3","abstract":"Alum is the only adjuvant approved for routine use in humans, although the basis for its adjuvanticity remains poorly understood. We have recently shown that Alum activates caspase-1 and induces secretion of mature IL-1β and IL-18. Here we show that in human and mice macrophages, alum-induced IL-1β, IL-18, and IL-33 secretion is mediated by the NLR protein NLRP3 and its adaptor ASC, but not by NLRC4. Other particulate adjuvants, such as QuilA and chitosan, induce inflammasome activation in a NLRP3-dependent fashion, suggesting that activation of the NLRP3-inflammasome may be a common mechanism of action of particulate adjuvants. Importantly, we demonstrate that antigen-specific antibody production elicited by vaccines that contain alum is significantly impaired in NLRP3-deficient mice. Our results demonstrate for the first time a role for the NLRP3-inflammasome during development of the immune response elicited by alum-enhanced vaccination. and suggest that therapeutic intervention aimed at NLRP3 may improve adjuvant efficacy.","journal":"UNC Libraries","year":2020,"id":96262,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":35,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.957,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":438865,"name":"Stephen B. Willingham","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":478201,"name":"Hanfen Li","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":299129,"name":"Jenny P.‐Y. Ting","orcid":"0000-0002-7846-0395","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":477338,"name":"Fabio Re","orcid":"0000-0002-1181-0717","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T22:34:34.781847Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}