NLRP3 and pulmonary fibrosis: To investigate the role of NLRP3 inflammasomes in bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis, we compared the lung sections from pulmonary fibrosis mice that underwent preventive treatment with Ac-YVAD-cmk (YVAD), a caspase-1 inhibitor to inhibit the NLRP3 inflammasome signaling pathway via intraperitoneal injection.