Cortistatin Inhibits NLRP3 Inflammasome Activation of Cardiac Fibroblasts During Sepsis

•We found that cortistatin can inhibit the NLRP3 inflammasome activity, decrease the IL-1β release, and protect the myocardial injury induced by sepsis.•This work provides the first evidence of cortistatin as a new immunomodulatory factor with the capacity to deactivate the NLRP3 inflammasome activity and protect the myocardial injury induced by sepsis.•This work has important implications for the design of new strategies to control NLRP3-related disease.

BackgroundCortistatin is a recently discovered neuropeptide that has emerged as a potential endogenous antiinflammatory peptide. As a clinical syndrome, sepsis occurs when an infection becomes amplified, leading to organ dysfunction or risk for secondary infection. Human septic shock involves excessive inflammatory cytokine production. Interleukin (IL) 1β is one of these cytokines, and it plays a pivotal role in sepsis-induced myocardial dysfunction. The aim of the present study is to evaluate whether cortistatin inhibits nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain–like receptor with a pyrin-domain 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome/caspase-1/IL-1β pathway in cardiac fibroblasts (CFs) and whether this role can subsequently affect myocardial injury.Methods and ResultsTo test these processes, a murine model of cecal ligation and puncture in vivo and lipopolysaccharide–induced cardiac fibroblasts were used in vitro. We found that pretreatment with cortistatin inhibited NLRP3-mediated ASC pyroptosome formation, caspase-1 activation, and IL-1β secretion. Additionally cortistatin inhibits proinflammatory pathways (nuclear factor κB and pro–IL-1β).ConclusionsThis work provided the first evidence of cortistatin as a new immunomodulatory factor with the capacity to deactivate NLRP3 inflammasome activity and to protect against the myocardial injury induced by sepsis. This study has important implications for the design of new strategies to control NLRP3-related diseases.