NLRP3 and heart failure: Bracey et al. have shown that the development of cardiac hypertrophy, apoptosis and ventricular dilatation in the cardiac-specific calcineurin transgenic mice (CN-Tg) (Bracey et al., 2013) is associated with increased protein levels of NLRP3 in cardiac tissue and IL-1β in serum, which suggest that both the “priming” and “triggering” steps are activated during the development of heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF).