IL6 and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: In the present work, we report that an antisense lncRNA termed interleukin 6 antisense RNA 1 (IL6‐AS1) is highly expressed in COPD and correlates with IL‐6 expression, acting as a miRNA sponge by competitively binding to miR‐149‐5p to upregulate IL‐6 in the cytoplasm.