Futhermore, lethally-irradiated low density lipoprotein receptor (LDLR) –/– mice reconstituted with bone marrow from either NLRP3-, ASC-, IL-1α/β or caspase 1/11-deficient mice are protected from the development of diet-induced atherosclerosis (Duewell et al., 2010; Hendrikx et al., 2015), further strengthening the role of myeloid-cell derived NLRP3, ASC, caspase-1 and IL-1β in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. Here, NLRP3 is linked to atherosclerosis.