Inflammatory diseases
A distinctive feature of inflammatory diseases, IL-1β also serves as an inducer of immunological memory. For example, it has been demonstrated that IL-1β pre-treatment protects mice against lethal Pseudomonasinfection, and has also been reported to mediate the immune response in human BCG vaccination, thereby indicating that this cytokine may play an important role in the macrophage memory associated with inflammatory diseases 62-64. This supposition in indeed supported by the fact that β-glucan-induced macrophage memory can contribute to inhibiting IL-1β-mediated inflammation. β-glucan is recognized as a classical immune memory inducer that can also activate NOD-, LRR-, and pyrin domain-containing protein 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome, the biochemical function of which is to activate cysteine-requiring aspartate proteinase-1 (caspase-1) and subsequent IL-1β production, thereby establishing macrophage memory and a marked attenuation of IL-1β secretion in NLRP3-associated inflammatory diseases 65, 66.