Inflammation is getting the blame for a growing number of ills, including tumour development. An oft-cited example is the link between ulcerative colitis and colon cancer. But new findings complicate the picture: three key proteins that form part of the inflammasome — a protein complex that triggers inflammatory responses — actually protect against colitis and the cancer it can induce.
Jenny P.-Y. Ting and her co-workers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill induced colitis in mice in which the gene for the protein NLRP3, PYCARD or caspase-1 had been knocked out. The mice showed heightened disease and a greater incidence of cancer.
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Immunology: Inflammatory good guys. Nature 464, 1107 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/4641107d
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/4641107d