Abstract
The innate immune response fights off pathogen invasion of the host, independent of previous exposure. The formation of inflammasomes, which are a multiprotein complex, ultimately leads to cell death. There are two inflammasome complexes in macrophages upon infection: the canonical and noncanonical inflammasome. We tested whether ASC speck formation, an indication of the canonical inflammasome, can be detected in Shigella infected and COVID-19 infected macrophages through western blots and immunofluorescence assays. We also tested whether TRAF6, a protein involved in innate immune signaling pathways, modulates non-canonical inflammasome formation through western blots and cytotoxicity assays. Additionally, we tested if priming with IFNγ- a cytokine- can stimulate non-canonical inflammasome formation in the absence of the sensor protein through western blots and cytotoxicity assays. We found that ASC specks could be detected in either Shigella or COVID-19 infected cells. Furthermore, TRAF6 does not modulate the noncanonical inflammasome and IFNγ stimulation cannot stimulate the noncanonical pathway in the absence of the sensor protein.