NLRP3 and infection: These data suggested that MUC1 has an anti-infection and anti-inflammatory function in response to H. pylori infection, which is consistent with our previous finding that MUC1 suppresses inflammation in response to H. pylori infection in vitro and in vivo (McGuckin et al., 2007; Linden et al., 2009; Sheng et al., 2013) via negative regulation of NF-κB (Guang et al., 2010; Sheng et al., 2013) and the NLRP3 inflammasome (Ng et al., 2016).