Kayagaki, N; Phung, QuiT; Liu, PS; Lill, JR; Li, H; Wu, J; Kummerfeld, S; Zhang, J; Lee, WP; Snipas, SJ; Salvesen, GuyS; Stowe, IB; Morris, LX; Fitzgerald, L; Zhang, Y; Bertram, EM; Goodnow, CC; Dixit, VM; Lee, BL; O'Rourke, K; Anderson, K; Warming, S; Cuellar, T; Haley, B; Roose-Girma, M; ,
Intracellular lipopolysaccharide from Gram-negative bacteria including Escherichia colt Salmonella typhimurium, Shigella flexneri, and Burkholderia thailandensis activates mouse caspase-11, causing pyroptotic cell death, interleukin-1 beta processing, and lethal septic shock. How caspase-11 executes these downstream signalling events is largely unknown. Here we show that gasdermin D is essential for caspase-11-dependent pyroptosis and interleukin-1 beta maturation. A forward genetic screen with ethyl-N-nitrosourea-mutagenized mice links Gsdmd to the intracellular lipopolysaccharide response. Macrophages from Gsdmd(-/-) mice generated by gene targeting also exhibit defective pyroptosis and interleukin-1 beta secretion induced by cytoplasmic lipopolysaccharide or Gram-negative bacteria. In addition, Gsdmd(-1-) mice are protected from a lethal dose of lipopolysaccharide. Mechanistically, caspase-11 cleaves gasdermin D, and the resulting amino-terminal fragment promotes both pyroptosis and NLRP3-dependent activation of caspase-1 in a cell-intrinsic manner. Our data identify gasdermin D as a critical target of caspase-11 and a key mediator of the host response against Grain-negative bacteria.