More recently, Weng and colleagues looked at the presence of pathogens and specific IgM against microbial pathogens in sputum, and sequences of pathogens in nasopharyngeal swabs from 170 IPF patients (122 with stable disease and 48 with AE-IPF) and 70 controls [43]. Here, CD40LG is linked to idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.