Following lung injury, fibroblasts can be activated and transformed into myofibroblasts, which can promote the production of fibrotic markers including collagen, α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) and vimentin (Vim), and leading to scar formation and IPF (Wang et al. 2022; Zhang et al. 2022). This evidence concerns the gene VIM and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.