TNF and dry eye syndrome: It has been recognized that the inflammatory mediators associated with aqueous tear deficiency dry eye included Th1-related cytokines (e.g INF-alpha), Th17-related cytokines, chemokines and theirreceptors, metalloproteinase, and secretory phospholipases (e.g IL-1β, IL-6, IFN-γ and TNF-α) and MMPs.[57, 59–63]We analyzed the tear cytokines (IL-8, IL-17 and TNF-α), and found a time dependent increase of these three cytokines after exposure, which was correlated to the time dependent change of the inflammatory cellular infiltration revealed by in vivo confocal microscopy.