CXCL12 and pulmonary fibrosis: Since fibroblasts were known to be attracted by chemokine CXCL12 and may contribute to the development of lung fibrosis [34–36], we performed the chemotaxis assay and found consistent results that HL217 dose-dependently reduced TGF-β-stimulated migration responding to CXCL12 in both NHLF and DHLF-IPF (Fig. 6G, H).