ELANE and cystic fibrosis: In cystic fibrosis (CF), high levels of neutrophil elastase (NE) in lung and sputum promote inflammation by up-regulating neutrophilic cytokines, help disrupt the protease-antiprotease balance by activating other proteases and degrading antiproteases as well as elicit a series of additional pathological effects that make NE an established biomarker of CF progression (102–105).