With respect to adverse effect of full-length HMGB1 as inflammation mediator, the present study showed that the inflammatory activity in heart tissue might have been attenuated in MI rats treated by the HMGB1 fragment, given that we observed significant decreases in IL-1β and IL-6 levels after HMGB1 treatment (Fig 2G). This evidence concerns the gene HMGB1 and myocardial infarction.