In the progression of smoking-induced atherosclerosis, it is reported that cigarette smoke extract induces damage to both nuclear DNA and mtDNA in endothelial cells, thereby activating the cGAS-STING-NF-κB signaling axis, which subsequently enhances the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as IL-6 (Ueda et al. 2023). Here, CGAS is linked to atherosclerosis.