Small interfering RNA silencing of Huwe1 in THP-1 macrophages has been shown to increase ABCG1 mediated cholesterol efflux, although we found no evidence of increased cholesterol efflux in our model as both necrotic core size and plaque burden were unaffected by pneumonia (Aleidi et al., 2015). Here, HUWE1 is linked to susceptibility to pneumonia measurement.