IL6 and infection: Further studies identified the production of critical inflammatory and antimicrobial peptides following infection by fungal pathogens, including IL-6, IL-8, granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), human β-defensin (HBD)2, HBD9, chemokine ligand (CXCL)1, monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1), and TNFα, with IL-6 and IL-8 being the most widely studied [103,110,116,117,122].