“Cruising together”—ASC specks and SAA, a perfect match in chronic inflammation

Abstract

Currently, over 350 million people worldwide live with chronic inflammatory diseases, facing a range of complications that severely impact their quality of life. Among these complications is amyloidosis, a group of diseases characterized by the extracellular deposition of insoluble amyloid fibrils that disrupt tissue structure and function. One specific form, amyloid A (AA) amyloidosis, is closely linked to chronic inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA), Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF), Crohn’s disease, and chronic infections. In this issue of EMBO Mol Med, Losa et al, shows that the inflammasome adaptor ASC plays an important role in the pathogenesis of AA amyloidosis, and suggests a potential immunotherapy for treating the disease (Losa et al, 2024).