Previous studies have focused on the nongenetic risk factors, including male sex, old age, and smoking (Baumgartner et al., 2000), or genetic evidence including several mutations identified in patients with familial pulmonary fibrosis, such as mutations in surfactant proteins (SP-A2 and SFTPC) (Wang et al., 2009; van Moorsel et al., 2010), gel-forming mucin (MUC5B) (Seibold et al., 2011), and telomerase (Armanios et al., 2007; Fukuhara et al., 2013; Duckworth et al., 2021). Here, MUC5AC is linked to pulmonary fibrosis.