he human NLRP1 promoter upon ER PubMed ID:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19740540 stress induction. Other transcription factors downstream of the IRE1-TRAF2 pathway, such as RELB and NFKB1, may also be involved in this process and they are currently under investigation. In contrast, XBP-1s did not participate in 
NLRP1 regulation, PubMed ID:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19741226 even though it has been described to play a role in inflammatory responses. This finding, together with the observation that NLRP1 expression is induced at later times compared to XBP-1 splicing, suggest that NLRP1 gene expression is stimulated during the terminal phase of the UPR. 11 / 16 ATF4 Controls NLRP1 Expression during ER Stress Interestingly, we observed NLRP1 up-regulation in many different cell lines in which one or more components of the Cobicistat inflammasomes, such as NLRP3 or the adaptor protein ASC, are not expressed and are not induced during ER stress. Together with the observation that most of these cell lines also do not express or up-regulate following ER stress the pro-forms of IL-1 or IL-18, this finding strongly suggests that NLRP1 function during ER stress is not related to pro-inflammatory cytokine secretion but presumably to other functions such as caspases activation. In this regard, NLRP1 was initially described to be involved in apoptosis. In addition, the NLRP1-interacting human proteins caspase-4 and caspase-5 have been shown to become activated during ER stress and were more recently implicated in cell death induced in response to intracellular bacterial components. Whether the human NLRP1 inflammasome is also involved in ER stress-dependent caspase-4/5 activation and cell death in response to bacterial infections is currently under investigation. Additionally, ischemia-reperfusion injury in the brain has been shown to cause increases in NLRP1 expression under conditions where caspase-1 inhibitors show neuroprotective activity. ATF4 is a member of the ATF/CREB family of basic region-leucine zipper transcription factors. Notably, the transcription factor CREB has been described to induce NLRP1 expression in leukemia cells. However, we did not observe any NLRP1 mRNA induction in HeLa cells upon treatment with the CREB activator forskolin. In addition, specific siRNA against CREB1 gene did not affect NLRP1 mRNA induction by BFA, suggesting that CREB does not play a role in human NLRP1 gene induction during ER stress conditions. Genomic variations in the NLR family genes are extensive among mammalian species, suggesting that specialization of these innate immunity genes has occurred during evolution to adapt to differences in the pathogens that various species encounter in their environmental niches. In this regard, the closest analog of the human NLRP1 gene in mice is a cluster of genes that vary among mouse strains in the proteins they encode and that lack the N-terminal PYRIN domain found in the human NLRP1 protein. Whether the murine gene locus showing homology to human NLRP1 is also subject to regulation by ER stress remains to be determined, however, a murine genome-wide ChIP-seq analysis failed to reveal ATF4 binding sites. In conclusion, this study demonstrates that the human NLRP1 gene is up-regulated during severe ER stress conditions. Furthermore, we clarified a portion of the underlying mechanism, which involves direct binding of transcription factor ATF4 to the NLRP1 gene promoter. Future efforts will be directed to identifying the mechanisms by which the IRE1 pathway also makes contributions to ER stress-induced NLRP1 gene expr
