TNF and injury: TNF-alpha is one of the principal mediators of the inflammatory response in mammals, transducing differential signals that regulate cellular activation and proliferation, cytotoxicity and apoptosis [10,11] In addition to its role in acute septic shock, TNF-alpha has been implicated in the pathogenesis of a wide variety of inflammatory diseases [11,12,14] as well as in the progression of alcoholic liver disease [7,15] The role of TNF-alpha in the development of ethanol-induced liver injury has been well characterized in animal models [7,15]