A study by Lau et al. on cell lysates of Calu-3 cells infected with MERS-CoV or SARS-CoV showed significantly upregulated levels of IL-6 in MERS-CoV compared to SARS-CoV, while TNF, IFNB, and CXCL10 were greatly induced upon SARS-CoV infection compared to MERS-CoV, which would be concordant with data presented in the current study [42]. This evidence concerns the gene IL6 and severe acute respiratory syndrome.