SOCS3 and tuberculosis: As potential mechanisms, interference of SOCS3 with IL-2-induced STAT5 phosphorylation was detected,1 and recently, we demonstrated that aberrant SOCS3 expression also affects CD127 reexpression during T cell activation.11 These findings strengthen the potential impact factor chain among IL-6/IL-10, pSTAT3/SOCS3 and impaired T-cell functions in tuberculosis (Fig. 1).