Advances in the study of relationship between Caspases and innate immunity

Caspases are a group of structurally related cysteine proteases present in cytosol. One of their important common points is that the active sites contain cysteine and can specifically break the peptide bonds after the aspartic acid residues. Caspases are broadly divided into two groups based on their functions, including inflammatory Caspases and apoptotic Caspases. Inflammatory Caspases include Caspase-1, Caspase-4, Caspase-5, Caspase-11 and Caspase-12, which play important roles in the process of innate immune defense. Unlike inflammatory Caspases, apoptotic Caspases(2/3/6/7/8/910)initiate and execute an immunologically silent form of programmed cell death known as apoptosis. However, ongoing investigations have uncovered essential functions of Caspase-8 in the regulation of immunity in cells and organisms. Accumulated studies have shown that Caspases play important roles in the occurrence and development of various immunity-related diseases. In order to comprehensively elucidate the relationship between Caspases and innate immunity, and to provide some scientific basis and theoretical reference for the treatment of various diseases, this article reviews the regulation of activity and inflammation mechanism of innate immunity-related Caspase-1/4/5/11/8/12.