IL1B and infection: To study whether MAC-LD infection leads to inflammasome activation in humans, we used MAC to stimulate the PBMCs from age- (42.2 vs 46.3 years, p = 0.251) and sex- (47% vs 33% male, p = 0.520) matched 20 healthy donors and 20 patients with MAC-LD, and found a strong inflammasome activation response with a higher IL-1β release in the healthy controls than in the patients with MAC-LD (290 pg/ml vs 162 pg/ml at MOI = 20; 360 pg/ml vs 178 pg/ml at MOI = 100, respectively).