2.1.2 Inflammasomes
Inflammasomes are complexes formed by the polymerization of multiple proteins that play an important regulatory role in the onset and progression of lung injury. The NLRP3 inflammasome is one of the most widely studied inflammatory vesicles, and mainly contains the recognition protein NLP, the bridging protein Asc, and the effector protein Caspase148. Previous studies have found that activation of NLRP3 inflammatory vesicles is a critical step in the pathogenesis of BPD49. Zhao et al. found that caffeine-induced antagonism of adenosine 2A receptor (A2AR) reduced the production of reactive oxygen species(ROS) , decreased the levels of cleaved caspase 1 expression, and inhibited expression of the NLRP3 inflammasome expression in LPS-induced THP-1 macrophages43. Subsequently, Chen et al. used animal models to demonstrate that caffeine inhibits the production of inflammatory factors and protects against lung injury due to hyperoxia exposure by reducing NF-κB pathway activation and by inhibiting NLRP3 the formation of the inflammasome44.