NLRP3 and atherosclerosis: Recent studies have shown that pyroptosis was involved in the development and progression of several CVDs (Figure 4), including atherosclerosis, diabetic cardiomyopathy, myocardial infarction, myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury, myocarditis (66), etc. Mechanistically, NLRP3 inflammasome activated caspase-1 and triggered an inflammatory cascade, which plays an important role in pyroptosis (67).