Our results describing a fatal course of L. major infection in TNF-/- (Wilhelm et al., 2001) contrast with two other studies published in experimental cutaneous leishmaniasis, which either used anti-TNF antibodies in C3H/HeN mice (Titus et al., 1989) or a Tnf-/- strain on a different mouse background (Chakour et al., 2003). The gene discussed is TNF; the disease is cutaneous leishmaniasis.