IL6 and systemic sclerosis: Since human dermal fibroblasts (thus SSc fibroblasts) do not express on their surface the IL-6 receptor (transmembrane IL-6R, mIL-6R) required for activating classic signaling (Lazzerini et al., 2016), the possibility can be ruled out that the P2X7-dependent stimulating effect on collagen production observed in-vitro is the result of the above reported IL-6 increase, via an autocrine mechanism.