NLRP3 and obesity due to melanocortin 4 receptor deficiency: Studies utilising both a mouse model of obesity-induced T2DM (db/db) and rat mesangial cells treated with high (30 mM) glucose, reported that podocyte injury, basement membrane thickness, foot process effacement and fibrosis, were all decreased when mice and cells were treated with MCC950, a small molecule inhibitor that blocks NLRP3 activation (Zhang et al., 2019).