MLKL and acute kidney injury: However, administering a Pan-caspase inhibitor (Z-VAD) or interfering with necroptosis (Nec-1, RIPK3-KO, or MLKL-KO) does not restore kidney early injury, as inhibiting necroptosis with Nec-1 or through RIPK3 knockout does not provide protective effects at early time points, despite the increases in RIPK3 and MLKL proteins in early stages of AKI [62,65].