IL17A and acute respiratory distress syndrome: While on the one hand, the IL-17 family confers protection from a variety of extracellular pathogens and was shown to drive leukocyte infiltration to facilitate clearance of infectious pathogens, aberrant IL-17 signaling can lead to excess inflammation and tissue damage and fibrosis [31], and has been implicated in ARDS, cystic fibrosis, and pulmonary fibrosis and other pathological conditions (reviewed in [31]).