NLRP3 and neurodegenerative disease: In parallel, mitochondrial nucleic acids—particularly mtDNA—can act as endogenous danger signals when released through context-dependent routes and engage pattern-recognition receptors such as cGAS–STING, NLRP3 (NLR family pyrin domain containing 3), AIM2 and TLR9, linking mitochondrial stress to inflammatory signaling implicated in cardiometabolic and neurodegenerative disease, as well as ageing and senescence [1,2,3,4,5,6,7].