Fig. 2: The mechanism of PD-L1 in pyroptosis.
From: Emerging mechanisms of pyroptosis and its therapeutic strategy in cancer

PD-L1 interacts with p-stat3 and then translocate into the nucleus to transcriptionally increase the expression of GSDMC, resulting in pyroptosis in response to hypoxic stress. TNFα in macrophages activates caspase-8, which cleaves GSDMC at the 362LELD365 site, releasing N-GSDMC to induce the switch of apoptosis to pyroptosis in cancer cells.