Inflammation drives pathology in many human diseases for which there are no disease-modifying drugs. Inflammasomes are signalling platforms that can induce pathological inflammation and tissue damage, having potential as an exciting new class of drug targets. Small-molecule inhibitors of the NLRP3 inflammasome that are now in clinical trials have demonstrated proof of concept that inflammasomes are druggable, and so drug development programmes are now focusing on other key inflammasome molecules. In this Review, we describe the potential of inflammasome components as candidate drug targets and the novel inflammasome inhibitors that are being developed. We discuss how the signalling biology of inflammasomes offers mechanistic insights for therapeutic targeting. We also discuss the major scientific and technical challenges associated with drugging these molecules during preclinical development and clinical trials.

炎症会引发许多人类疾病的病理变化，而目前还没有缓解疾病的药物。炎症小体是可以诱导病理性炎症和组织损伤的信号平台，具有成为令人兴奋的新型药物靶点的潜力。目前正在进行临床试验的 NLRP3 炎症小体小分子抑制剂已经证明了炎症小体是可药物化的，因此药物开发项目现在正集中在其他关键炎症小体分子上。在这篇综述中，我们描述了炎症小体成分作为候选药物靶点的潜力以及正在开发的新型炎症小体抑制剂。我们讨论炎症小体的信号生物学如何为治疗靶向提供机制见解。我们还讨论了在临床前开发和临床试验期间与这些分子给药相关的主要科学和技术挑战。