The earliest event in atherosclerosis is increased monocyte adhesion to endothelial cells, which is primarily regulated by vascular inflammatory factors including cytokines such as interleukin (IL)-6, chemokines such as IL-8 and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1, and endothelial adhesion molecules such as vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1) and intracellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) (Gwon et al., 2015). Here, VCAM1 is linked to atherosclerosis.