Ethanol has no obvious effects on proliferation or morphology in either iPS cells or NPCs, but rather it primes the activation of pro-apoptotic pathways, such as those mediated by inflammasomes, as detected by increased staining for Casp3 and NLRP3. This is consistent with a previous study showing that chronic alcohol consumption does not affect cell proliferation in the human subventricular zone (SVZ) [15]. Given the strong interplay between the inflammasome and autophagosome pathways [8], and the effects of ethanol on the regulation of autophagy [9], we investigated the expression and distribution of LC3B, a protein incorporated into the autophagosomal membrane during their formation [42]. Interestingly, both iPS cells (Fig. 7b and 8b) and NPCs (Fig. 2f and j) displayed an increase of LC3B+ puncta (representative of autophagosomes and autophagosome-lysosome organelles). Accordingly, an anomalous distribution of Lamp1+ lysosomes was evident in treated cells. Thus, we suggest that an ethanol-mediated pro-apoptotic pathway additionally includes the participation of a disturbed autophagy process. Interestingly, it’s known that the inflammasome and autophagy pathways may participate independently of ethanol-mediated responses [43, 44]. However, given the multiplicity
