TNF and rheumatoid arthritis: Kiriakidis et al. [17] also showed that VEGF production in human macrophages was NF-κB-dependent, which agreed with our finding of interaction between VEGF and NFKBIL1. VEGF may be directly involved in the activation of RA monocytes and synoviocytes, producing TNF and IL-6 via a receptor-coupling event [18].