NLRP3 and bacterial infectious disease: As HMGB1 is a critical damage-associated molecular pattern (DAMP) that is released into extracellular milieu during bacterial infections or cell damages triggering multiple inflammatory signaling (Lotze and Tracey, 2005; Yanai et al., 2012), the anti-inflammatory activities of scutellarin may be partly mediated by suppressing HMGB1 release during NLRP3-dependent pyroptosis.