NLRP3 and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma: To determine whether NLRP3 inflamasome was associated with human HNSCC, we examined their expression by immunohistochemistry and found that NLRP3, Caspase-1, ASC, IL-18 were highly expressed in the cytoplasm of cancer cells, and the expression of them was negative or low in the normal mucosa (Fig. 1a).