Interestingly, we have shown that specific blockade of IL-6 trans-signaling was as effective as the blockade of global IL-6 activity by a neutralizing antibody indicating that IL-6 trans-signaling represents the pro-inflammatory IL-6 activity (Scheller et al., 2011) whereas IL-6 signaling via the membrane bound IL-6R was rather protective e.g., in the case of bacterial infections (Sodenkamp et al., 2012; Hoge et al., 2013). This evidence concerns the gene IL6 and bacterial infectious disease.