IL6 and atherosclerosis: MMP9 correlated with left ventricular dysfunction after myocardial infarction [104,105], atherosclerosis [106] coronary artery disease [107], and is increased by proinflammatory cytokines, such as interleukin-1 (IL-1) [108], IL-6 [73] and tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα) [74].