At the same time, itaconate, a metabolite produced during inflammatory macrophage activation, could inhibit ferroptosis by up-regulating Nrf2 (Nuclear Factor erythroid 2-Related Factor 2) levels, thereby alleviating the symptoms of acute lung injury (ALI) and the presence of macrophages in the lung tissue infiltration (He et al., 2022). Here, NFE2L2 is linked to acute lung injury.