As a profibrotic protein, Gal-3 is identified as a biomarker for the progression of fibrosis (Li et al., 2014) and its expression was increased in the bleomycin-caused pulmonary fibrosis mouse model and patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (Nishi et al., 2007; Mackinnon et al., 2012) or liver fibrosis (Mackinnon et al., 2023). Here, LGALS3 is linked to pulmonary fibrosis.