To investigate whether cell pyroptosis (Bergsbaken et al., 2009) was involved in the pathogenesis of ALI in LPS-treated mice and to explore the possible inhibition of LPS-induced pyroptosis by HPD/NPs, immunohistochemical staining was performed to detect the expression levels of IL-1β and caspase 1 in the lung of septic mice (Figure 6). The gene discussed is CASP1; the disease is acute respiratory distress syndrome.