The Role of Interleukin 6 During Viral Infections

Our recently published research on the characterization of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) pathogenesis in swine, identified a systemic upregulation of interleukin 6 (IL-6) during the acute phase of infection (Velazquez-Salinas et al., 2018). This upregulation was observed during infection with a highly virulent VSV strain, suggesting a potential association between IL-6 levels and virus virulence in pigs. In this opinion note we would like to explore in more detail the biological functions of IL-6 in different virus models, and present our perspective regarding the debatable role of IL-6 during viral infections. While several studies show the essential role of IL-6 to mount a proper immune response during some viral infections, others link this cytokine with exacerbation of viral disease. These latter findings lend support to the hypothesis that upregulation of IL-6 during certain viral infections may promote virus survival and/or exacerbation of clinical disease. Copyright © 2019 Velazquez-Salinas, Verdugo-Rodriguez, Rodriguez and Borca. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.