It was observed that the proteoglycan content increases dramatically during early atherosclerosis, which was predominantly composed of versican, biglycan, and decorin in humans (Nakashima et al., 2007, Nakashima et al., 2008; Wight, 2018) and biglycan and perlecan in mice (Kunjathoor et al., 2002a). Here, DCN is linked to atherosclerosis.