IL6 and neoplasm: To investigate whether the IL-6/HO-1 axis might directly facilitate transendothelial migration of tumour cells, BMDM were exposed to IL-6 to upregulate HO-1 expression (Fig. 4a) and co-cultured with 4T1 tumour cells on an endothelial cell layer in an in vitro transwell assay (Fig. 6n and Supplementary Figure 8a, b).