Volume 22, No 7, Jul 2012

ISSN: 1001-0602 
EISSN: 1748-7838 2018 
impact factor 17.848* 
(Clarivate Analytics, 2019)

Volume 22 Issue 7, July 2012: 1095-1098

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

The inflammasome: A remote control for metabolic syndrome

Mohamed Lamkanfi^1,2 and Thirumala-Devi Kanneganti³

¹Department of Biochemistry, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
²Department of Medical Protein Research, VIB, Ghent, Belgium
³Department of Immunology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN 38105, USA Correspondence: Thirumala-Devi Kanneganti,(Thirumala-Devi.Kanneganti@StJude.org)

Humans can be divided into roughly three groups with distinct microbial communities in their gastro-intestinal tract. The microbiota contributes to metabolic activity in the gastro-intestinal tract of the host, but what mechanisms shape the composition of the gut microbiota, and how does a person's 'enterotype' affect metabolic processes in distant organs? Flavell and colleagues shed light on these questions by revealing an important role for inflammasomes in modulating the prevalence of colitogenic species, and by demonstrating that dysbiosis influences susceptibility to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and other manifestations of metabolic syndrome.

Cell Research (2012) 22:1095-1098. doi:10.1038/cr.2012.55; published online 10 April 2012

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