However, IL-6-STAT3 signaling has been shown to play a central role in murine pulmonary fibrosis models (Le et al. 2014; O’Donoghue et al. 2012; Pedroza et al. 2016) and phosphorylated STAT3 was detected in nuclei of pneumocytes next to fibrotic lesions in the lungs of IPF patients (Pedroza et al. 2016). Here, IL6 is linked to pulmonary fibrosis.