During atherosclerosis, activation of autophagy in the ECs induces packing and secretion of miR-204-5p; this targets BCL2 when absorbed by the ECs and runt-related transcription factor 2 (RUNX2) when absorbed by the VSMCs to alleviate smooth muscle cell calcification (Tian et al., 2024). Here, RUNX2 is linked to atherosclerosis.