Interestingly, our results showed remarkable elevated expression of NLRP3 in both hippocampus and cerebral cortex regions of the brain in NEC pups compared to the breastfed control (Fig. 2g); accordantly, NLRP3, cleaved caspase-1, and pro and mature IL-1β levels of brain tissue were also greatly upregulated in most of the NEC pups (Fig. 2f); these data suggest that NLRP3 inflammasome activation may also participate in the brain inflammatory injury of NEC. Here, NLRP3 is linked to necrotizing enterocolitis.