Of note, key inflammatory factors and drivers of COVID-19-induced cytokine storm were included in our analysis (IL-6, IL-8, IL-13, TNF-α, CXCL9, CXCL10, PDGF, VEGF-A, CD40L, IL1RA) and showed robust upregulation in infected Calu-3 cells (see Figure 6 for graphical overview and details) (Cauchois et al., 2020; Donlan et al., 2021; Pang et al., 2021; Petrey et al., 2021; Sugiyama et al., 2021). This evidence concerns the gene CD40LG and COVID-19.