CBLN1 and bacterial infectious disease: Prior work has established that trophoblasts do not undergo necroptotic cell death in response to cytosolic double-stranded DNA, a stimulus that mimics conditions of bacterial infection.27 In contrast, our in vitro data using primary trophoblasts and choriocarcinoma JEG3 cells convincingly demonstrate that trophoblast cells are susceptible to necroptosis under conditions characterized by CER accumulation and caspase inactivation.