IL6 and acute respiratory distress syndrome: LPS-induced ALI is mediated by proinflammatory cytokines and mediators such as nitric oxide (NO), interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), IL-1β and IL-8, which are produced by the alveolar macrophages (Wu et al., 2018) following activation of the mitogen activated protein kinases (MAPK) and NF-κB signaling pathways (Xu et al., 2014; Kim et al., 2015a).