Published Online First

The realisation that the production of inflammatory cytokines in inflammatory rheumatic diseases may be induced by non-infectious endogenous signals has encouraged researchers to explore mechanisms of innate immunity and their contribution to the pathogenesis of these diseases. The nucleotide-binding and oligomerisa-tion domain (NOD)-like receptors (NLRs) sense patho-gens, products of damaged cells or endogenous metabolites and could potentially be involved in the initiation, amplification and progression of the inflamma-tory response in rheumatic diseases. NLRs are involved in the regulation of innate immune responses with some of them promoting the activation of inflammatory caspases within multiprotein complexes, called inflammasomes.