As lung fibrosis is characterised by loss of normal alveolar type I and type II cells and atypical epithelial differentiation (196), it may be speculated that overexpression and extracellular deposition of fibroblast-generated COL14A1 contributes to these epithelial events and therefore to loss of normal alveolar structure. Here, COL14A1 is linked to pulmonary fibrosis.