IL6 and atherosclerosis: Interleukin (IL)-6, a pro-inflammatory cytokine for which levels increase systemically in atherosclerosis60,61 and that endothelial cells express in response to inflammatory mediators62,63, was chosen for follow-up because its transcript was highly ranked by P value among the upregulated transcripts in atherosclerosis (Fig. 7c and Supplementary Table 1).