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The inflammasomes play critical roles in numerous pathological conditions largely through IL-1b and/or IL-18. However, additional effectors have been implied from multiple studies. In this study, through two independent mass spectrometry-based secretome screening approaches, we identified galectin-3 as an effector protein of the NLRP3 inflammasome. Although the activation of AIM2 or NLRC4 inflammasome also led to galectin-3 secretion, only the NLRP3 inflammasome controlled the serum galectin-3 level under physiological condition. Mechanistically, active gasdermin D drove the nonexosomal secretion of galectin-3 through the plasma membrane pores. In vivo, high-fat diet-fed Nlrp3 2/2 mice exhibited decreased circulating galectin-3 compared with wild-type animals. Of note, the improved insulin sensitivity in such Nlrp3 2/2 mice was aggravated by infusion of recombinant galectin-3. Moreover, galectin-3 was essential for insulin resistance induction in mice harboring the hyperactive Nlrp3 A350V allele. Thus, the inflammasome-galectin-3 axis has been demonstrated as a promising target to intervene inflammasome and/or galectin-3 related diseases.

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Touchless interaction has received considerable attention in recent years with benefit of removing the burden of physical contact. To achieve mid-air interaction, several strategies are available. However, since most of these techniques directly map the 2D WIMP GUI to 3D user interface, they lead unnatural result. In this paper, interaction gestures and tools for exploring volume dataset are designed to perform the similar tasks in the real world. We mainly employ the idea of focus + context based on GPU volume raycasting by trapezoid-shaped transfer function when designing interaction tools. User studies are conducted to demonstrate the usability and intuitiveness of our method. The experimental results show a significant advantage in completion time after a short period of training.

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