In this context, patients with acute coronary syndromes or coronary arteriosclerosis showed increased TLR4 expression on circulating monocytes, compared with control patients (Methe et al., 2005; Geng et al., 2006); high expression of TLR4 was also found at the site of ruptured plaques in patients with acute myocardial infarction (Ishikawa et al., 2008). The gene discussed is TLR4; the disease is acute myocardial infarction.