TERC and pulmonary fibrosis: In contrast, common polymorphisms in TERT, TERC, or RTEL1 tend to have smaller effect sizes and do not necessarily diminish telomeres to the same degree; indeed, some are seen to correlate with slightly longer telomeres, implicating minute changes in telomere homeostasis but no frank loss of function in communicating genetic susceptibility to pulmonary fibrosis [10].