IFI6 and viral infectious disease: Chronic inflammation resulting from viral infections promotes AS development (Poznyak et al., 2020); IFI6 is associated with the type I interferon-signaling pathway, and these type I interferons in plaques are known to aggravate AS; additionally, type I interferons are essential mediators of the pathogenesis of AS (Jia et al., 2017; Chen et al., 2020; Mathian et al., 2023).