Blocking GSDMD processing in innate immune cells but not in hepatocytes protects hepatic ischemia–reperfusion injury

Pyroptosis, a proinflammatory form of programmed cell death, plays important roles in the pathogenesis of many diseases. Inflammasome activation, which has been shown in hepatic ischemia–reperfusion injury (IRI), is demonstrated to be closely associated with pyroptosis, indicating that pyroptosis may occur and perform functions in hepatic IRI. However, there is no direct evidence showing the function of pyroptosis in hepatic IRI. In this study, by detecting the pyroptosis markers, we showed that pyroptosis may be induced during hepatic IRI. Furthermore, by adopting caspase-1 inhibitors, we showed that inhibition of pyroptosis could significantly ameliorate liver injury and suppress inflammatory response during hepatic IRI. Interestingly, caspase-1 inhibitors have no protective effects on in vitro hepatocytes under hypoxic reoxygenation condition. To investigate pyroptosis induced in which specific cell types may affect hepatic IRI, we generated hepatocyte-specific Gsdmd-knockout (Hep-Gsdmd(−/−)) and myeloid-specific Gsdmd-knockout (LysmCre(+)Gsdmd(f/f)) mice. Functional experiments showed that compared to control mice (Gsdmd(f/f)), there were alleviated liver injury and inflammation in LysmCre(+)Gsdmd(f/f) mice, but not in AlbCre(+)Gsdmd(f/f) mice. In parallel in vitro studies, cytokine expression and production decreased in bone-marrow-derived macrophages and Kupffer cells from LysmCre(+)Gsdmd(f/f) mice compared to their controls. Our findings demonstrated that pyroptosis in innate immune cells aggravates hepatic IRI and implied that hepatic IRI could be protected by blocking pyroptosis, which may become a potential therapeutic target in the clinic.