STAT3 and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: 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).