PCSK9 and atherosclerosis: Although statin therapy has been shown to reduce the risk of atherosclerosis events (Ference et al., 2017), long-term use of statins may lead to liver enzyme abnormalities, muscle toxicity, and diabetes mellitus, with poor patient compliance (Björnsson, 2017), and PCSK9 inhibitors also have the inherent drawbacks of monoclonal antibody drugs, such as high dosage requirements and frequent administration (Maningat et al., 2013).