Caspase-11 Mediated Cell Death Contributes to the Pathogenesis of Imiquimod-Induced Psoriasis

Abstract

Inflammasomes are multiprotein complexes that respond to infection or injury to activate inflammation. Inflammatory caspases, caspase-1, 4 and 5 in humans, and their murine orthologues caspase-1 and 11 are crucial components of inflammasomes, responsible for the maturation and secretion of IL-1β and IL-18, and for pyroptosis (inflammatory cell death) (Creagh, 2014). Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin condition with a range of clinical manifestations. The most common manifestation is chronic plaque psoriasis, where the adaptive immune response predominates. However innate and autoinflammatory events, governed by IL-1β (Martinez-Quiles and Goldbach-Mansky, 2018), prevail in pustular forms of psoriasis (Liang et al., 2017).