CASP7 and bacterial infectious disease: CASP7 is a thiol protease involved in different programmed cell death processes, such as apoptosis, pyroptosis, or granzyme-mediated programmed cell death, by proteolytically cleaving target proteins and acts as a key regulator of the inflammatory response in response to bacterial infection by catalyzing the cleavage and activation of the sphingomyelin phosphodiesterase (SMPD1) in the extracellular milieu, thereby promoting membrane repair [72,73].