MiR-21 targets the key factors in toll-like receptor pathways. (A) TLR4, IRAK3, and CXCL10 as candidate targets of miR-21 posttranscriptional repression. Shown is a sequence alignment of miR-21 and its target sites in 3′ UTRs of TLR4, IRAK3, and CXCL10. (B) The panels show the analysis of expression of TLR4-3′UTR, IRAK3-3′UTR, and CXCL10-3′UTR luciferase reporters in the presence of miR-21. (C) Western blot assay to examine the protein levels of TLR4, IRAK3, CXCL10, IRAK1, MyD88, PDCD4, PPARA, and PTEN when over expression of miR-21 in THP-1 cells. Glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) was used as loading control.