As seen in Table 2, the ORE was affected by the infection, increasing several times their baseline values, independently whether the thymus were injected or not with TNF-α Interestingly, TNF-α plus FITC injection caused a marked increase in the ORE of FITC+CD4+CD8+ cells compared with FITC alone in both secondary lymphoid organs of infected animals. This evidence concerns the gene CD4 and infection.