Previous work has shown that the NLRP3 inflammasome pathway is activated by lipopolysaccharide, microbial products, extracellular DNA, cigarette smoke, and other substances during acute and chronic lung injury (Hosseinian, Cho, Lockey, & Kolliputi, 2015; Lee et al., 2016; Pinkerton et al., 2017) including pneumonia, ARDS, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and pulmonary fibrosis. Here, NLRP3 is linked to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.