Further overlapping of ALI-associated nodal genes with gene expression profiling data from ARDS induced by COVID-19 in patients [82] revealed a range of common genes differentially expressed in both the acute (ALI, mice) and the late (COVID-19, postmortem, human) phases of lung injury (CCL2, RTP4, MMP8, IFI44, RSAD2, CYP1A1, FYB1, LCN2), which demonstrates their probable key regulatory role in the progression of ALI (Fig 5A). This evidence concerns the gene CCL2 and COVID-19.