AIM2 and infection: However, the absence of AIM2 but not NLRP3 had a small but significant effect on cell death in response to infection potentially accounting for the small reduction in cell death we observed with caspase-1 deficiency alone, but also reinforcing our findings that in contrast to IL-1β release, cell death was not solely dependent on caspase-1 activity (Fig 2B and 2D).