Figure 3.

Pyroptosis during HIV Infection Contributes to Disease. During HIV infection, different inflammasomes are activated in different cell types and in response to different stimuli. However, in all cell types inflammasome activation causes maturation of IL-1β and the inflammatory form of cell death, pyroptosis. Pyroptosis in CD4⁺ T cells contributes to immunodeficiency by further depleting CD4⁺ T cell numbers, whereas pyroptosis of podocytes in the kidney results in HIV-associated nephropathy.