Some of the proteins described in our study, including IL-6, IL-1, TNF-α, and IL-10, have already been reported to play important roles in the function of IMs, and most of them (e.g. IL-6, TNF-α, IP-10, and IL-12p70) [27–30] have been reported to be involved in PCP. Here, TNF is linked to pneumocystosis.