Furthermore, in the PLUNC protein family, SPLUNC1 and LPLUNC1, which are highly expressed in nasopharyngeal epithelium, play a significant role in the process of chronic inflammation and carcinogenesis of nasopharyngeal epithelium by suppressing IL‐6‐induced nasopharyngeal carcinoma cell proliferation through activating NF‐κB and STAT3 signaling pathways (Liao et al., 2014) or down‐regulating of the MAP kinase and cyclin D1/E2F pathways (Yang et al., 2013). Here, STAT3 is linked to nasopharyngeal carcinoma.