Inflammation is the alarm system by which cells first respond to potential danger. But in excess, inflammation can be deadly. In new research from the Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine (PCCM) at Boston Children’s Hospital, scientists discovered that disulfiram, an FDA-approved drug commonly used for treating alcoholism, blocks a key gatekeeper protein involved in inflammation.
Activation of that protein, gasdermin D, is the final common step in the process of inflammatory cell death, or pyroptosis, and the resulting release of inflammatory cytokines seen in many serious conditions including sepsis. In mouse studies, animals treated with disulfiram did not develop fatal sepsis compared with untreated animals. These findings were published in a paper in Nature Immunology.