Gene expression profiling of cultured alveolar macrophages following induction of immunological cell death
Alveolar macrophages (AMs) play a crucial role in protecting the lungs from pathogens by inducing immunogenic cell death (ICD). However, the type of cell death that effectively induces protective immunity remains to be fully understood. In our investigation of the mechanisms regulating AM activation and lung immune responses, we found that AMs are highly susceptible to necroptosis, a form of ICD. Treatment with pan-caspase inhibitor,  emricasan, directly induced cell death in AMs, resulting in the release of interleukin 1a. To understand the characteristics of inflammatory responses induced by emricasan, we performed a comprehensive bulk RNA-seq analysis of cultured AMs treated with emricasan for 6 hours. Overall design: In vitro cultured alveolar macrophages (prepared from C57BL/6J mice) were cultured with or without emricasan (40 µM) for 6 hours.