HMGB1 and atherosclerosis: High mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) is a ubiquitous and abundant nuclear protein (Lakhan et al., 2009) with a critical role in many cardiovascular diseases, such as atherosclerosis, MI, myocardial I/R injury, and heart failure (Ding and Yang, 2010; Yao et al., 2013b, 2016; Liu et al., 2015).