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). The gene discussed is SP1; the disease is pulmonary embolism.