As expected, E. coli infection of IPEC-1 cells induced the upregulation of genes encoding cytokines participating in the inflammatory response, such as IL1B2 (logFC of 3.07), TNF (logFC of 2.01), IL6 (logFC of 2.73), IL2 (logFC of 2.86), IL4 (logFC of 1.46), IL12b (logFC of 2.86) and IL23A (logFC of 2.79) (Additional file 7). The gene discussed is IL6; the disease is escherichia coli infection.