NLRP3 and acute respiratory distress syndrome: To explore whether macrophage pyroptosis is activated in LIR–ALI and exacerbates the massive release of inflammatory factors through pyroptosis, thereby promoting ALI, we used immunofluorescence colocalization techniques to stain lung tissues from the mice in each group and observed the colocalization of F4/80 with the pyroptosis-related proteins NLRP3 and IL-1β.