Purification and analysis of the interactions of caspase-1 and ASC for assembly of the inflammasome

Appl Biochem Biotechnol. 2015 Mar;175(6):2883-94. doi: 10.1007/s12010-014-1471-4. Epub 2015 Jan 8.

Abstract

Inflammasomes are intracellular macromolecular complexes assembled to activate inflammatory caspases such as caspase-1 and caspase-5, which perform critical roles during innate immune response. The NALP3 inflammasome comprises three protein components, NALP3, ASC, and caspase-1. ASC, which contains both a pyrin domain (PYD) and a caspase recruitment domain (CARD), acts as a bridge to recruit NALP3 using the PYD/PYD interaction and to recruit caspase-1 via the CARD/CARD interaction. In this study, we successfully purified and characterized ASC CARD and caspase-1 CARD. The results showed that ASC CARD was unable to interact with caspase-1 CARD in vitro; therefore, we proposed an interaction mode between ASC CARD and caspase-1 CARD from a structural based modeling study.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • CARD Signaling Adaptor Proteins
  • Carrier Proteins / genetics
  • Carrier Proteins / metabolism
  • Caspase 1 / genetics
  • Caspase 1 / isolation & purification*
  • Caspase 1 / metabolism*
  • Cytoskeletal Proteins / chemistry
  • Cytoskeletal Proteins / genetics
  • Cytoskeletal Proteins / isolation & purification*
  • Cytoskeletal Proteins / metabolism*
  • Humans
  • Inflammasomes / chemistry
  • Inflammasomes / metabolism*
  • NLR Family, Pyrin Domain-Containing 3 Protein
  • Protein Binding
  • Protein Structure, Tertiary

Substances

  • CARD Signaling Adaptor Proteins
  • Carrier Proteins
  • Cytoskeletal Proteins
  • Inflammasomes
  • NLR Family, Pyrin Domain-Containing 3 Protein
  • NLRP3 protein, human
  • PYCARD protein, human
  • Caspase 1