TNF and breast neoplasm: In order to test the involvement of TNF-α activation/endothelial dysfunction of the breast tumor vasculature, we further explored if the correlations identified in our ex vivo cellular model (endothelial cells) between the expression of TNF-α mRNA and the expression of 19 putative TNF-α- inducible NF-κB target genes were also observed ex vivo in human breast tumors.