The Role of Immune-related NLR Pyrin Domain Containing 2 (NLRP2) Gene in the Development and Diseases

The Nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain, Leucine-rich Repeat, and Pyrin domain-containing (NLRP) family, including NLR Family Pyrin Domain-Containing 2 (NLRP2) gene, is defined as a critical element in regulating both apoptosis and inflammation. Although the NLRP2 protein involves in stimulating the production of inflammatory cytokines and chemokines in response to pathogens, the expression of NLRP2 gene has been reported in many diseases. Some studies indicated that NLRP2 as a Nuclear Factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-κB)-positive regulator resulted in the production of NF-κB-driven cytokines. Wherease other studies reported NLRP2 as an NF-κB-negative regulator that limits IκB kinase, an enzyme involved in elucidating the cellular response to inflammation. This literature review has directly evaluated the relation of both the NLRP2 gene and NLRP2 protein in the development and different diseases based on journal articles obtained from databases such as PubMed, Science direct and Medline. Scientific names and symbols of the gene were utilized as keywords for published data from 2003 until 2020. We propose that the overexpression of the NLRP2 gene might result in an inflammatory microenvironment associated with localized or systematic diseases based on; the cells that express this particular gene and the location of the immune responses and the triggered signal transduction pathway.