While they exhibit anti-oxidative effects, they have also been shown to suppress pathological angiogenesis by inhibiting expression of angiogenic factors and/or apoptotic factors like NOS3, VEGF, IL-6, IGF-1, and TNF which are hub genes in our analysis that encode for factors that are normally elevated in the serum and vitreous of ROP infants (45–50). Here, IL6 is linked to retinopathy of prematurity.