Tranilast directly targets NLRP3 to treat inflammasome‐driven diseases

The dysregulation of NLRP3 inflammasome can cause uncontrolled inflammation and drive the development of a wide variety of human diseases, but the medications targeting NLRP3 inflammasome are not available in clinic. Here, we show that tranilast (TR), an old anti‐allergic clinical drug, is a direct NLRP3 inhibitor. TR inhibits NLRP3 inflammasome activation in macrophages, but has no effects on AIM2 or NLRC4 inflammasome activation. Mechanismly, TR directly binds to the NACHT domain of NLRP3 and suppresses the assembly of NLRP3 inflammasome by blocking NLRP3 oligomerization. In vivo experiments show that TR has remarkable preventive or therapeutic effects on the mouse models of NLRP3 inflammasome‐related human diseases, including gouty arthritis, cryopyrin‐associated autoinflammatory syndromes, and type 2 diabetes. Furthermore, TR is active ex vivo for synovial fluid mononuclear cells from patients with gout. Thus, our study identifies the old drug TR as a direct NLRP3 inhibitor and provides a potentially practical pharmacological approach for treating NLRP3‐driven diseases.

• Publication year

  2018

• Venue

  EMBO Molecular Medicine

• Publication date

  2018-03-12

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Chemistry

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.15252/emmm.201708689PMID 29531021PMCID 5887903
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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