In a rat model of myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury, it was found that exosomes derived from M2 macrophages deliver microRNA-148a and alleviate myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury by inhibiting thioredoxin interacting protein (TXNIP) and the TLR4/NF-jB/NLRP3 inflammasome signalling pathway [22]. Here, NLRP3 is linked to myocardial ischemia.