TERC and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: More recently, two large genome-wide association studies (GWASs) conducted in patients with sporadic and familiar IPF not only confirmed known associations with TERC, TERT, and mucin 5B gene (MUC5B), but also identified novel risk genes such as the toll interacting protein (TOLLIP) and the signal peptide peptidase like 2C (SPPL2C) [13, 14].