CASP3 and atherosclerosis: The IHC results demonstrated that agomir-124 treatment decreased the staining area of macrophage marker CD68, pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-6, TNF-α, MCP-1, IL-1b, and pro-apoptotic factor Bax and caspase 3 comparing to the corresponding controls, while increased the staining area of anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10 and TGF-β and anti-apoptotic factor Bcl-2 comparing to their corresponding controls, suggesting that miR-124 not only inhibited inflammatory responses, but also prevented cell apoptosis during atherosclerosis development.