Curcumin was found to reduce miR-21 expression by down-regulating specificity protein 1 (Sp1) and up-regulating phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) and inhibiting the NF-κB signaling pathway, decreasing inflammatory factors and lung thrombus volume in an acute pulmonary embolism model in rats, thereby alleviating pulmonary thromboembolism (Liang et al., 2021). Here, PTEN is linked to pulmonary embolism.