IL6 and acute respiratory distress syndrome: Considering that IL-6 appeared to promote STAT3 phosphorylation in basal cells of the airways and previous data showed that the IL-6–p-STAT3 pathway regulated p63 isoform expression in keratinocytes [41, 42], we hypothesized that a sharp rise of IL-6 boosted STAT3 phosphorylation and then restrained p63 expression in BLM-induced ALI.