Since the IL6/IL6R/CEBP gene module was correlated with both systemic disease dissemination and monocyte expansion, two processes associated with TB disease (Rogers, 1928; Schmitt et al., 1977), we next examined whether these genes might be connected to disease severity in a published cohort with detailed clinical parameters and transcriptome data (Berry et al., 2010). Here, IL6 is linked to tuberculosis.