"Cruising together"-ASC specks and SAA, a perfect match in chronic inflammation.

Currently, over 350 million people worldwide live with chronic inflammatory diseases, facing a range of complications that severely impact their quality of life. Among these complications is amyloidosis, a group of diseases characterized by the extracellular deposition of insoluble amyloid fibrils that disrupt tissue structure and function. One specific form, amyloid A (AA) amyloidosis, is closely linked to chronic inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA), Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF), Crohn’s disease, and chronic infections. In this issue of , Losa et al, shows that the inflammasome adaptor ASC plays an important role in the pathogenesis of AA amyloidosis, and suggests a potential immunotherapy for treating the disease (Losa et al, 2024).