We also identified several genes such as: COL3A1, COL4A6, MMP7 and MMP13, TGF-beta, WNT family, Serpine 1, LEF1, CLDN1 and CAV1 which had been shown to be relevant to IPF pathogenesis [33, 36, 40–44] suggesting that IPF relevant genes could be detected in FFPE tissues. Here, CLDN1 is linked to idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.