Abstract: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common tachyarrhythmia in clinic, but its mechanism has not been fully elucidated, and the increased inflammatory response is often associated with the occurrence and development of AF. As the most widely studied and characteristic inflammatory body in recent years, nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain-like receptor protein3 (NLRP3) inflammasome participates in many non-infectious inflammatory reactions, while more evidences show that NLRP3 is closely related to atrial remodeling and myocardial fibrosis, which may provide a new theoretical basis and research target for the upstream mechanisms of AF. In this paper, the characteristics and signal transduction pathways of NLRP3 are briefly described, the correlation between NLRP3 and AF is summarized from both basic and clinical studies,and the future application of NLRP3 antagonist is prospected.

Key words: atrial fibrillation, signal transduction, NLRP3, review