TNF and systemic lupus erythematosus: Our data showed that BMSCs proliferation in SLE patients was significantly lower than that in healthy controls (0.51 ± 0.05 versus 1.20 ± 0.35, n = 6, P < 0.01), while TNF-α at either 50 μg/L or 100 μg/L had no significant impact on the proliferation rate of BMSCs from both healthy controls and SLE patients (Figure 2(d)).