Several studies showed that scutellarin inhibits the expression of inflammatory cytokines, such as tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α and IL-6, through suppressing the NF-κB pathway in LPS-activated microglia (Wang et al., 2011; Chen et al., 2013) as well as in LPS-induced acute lung injury (Tan et al., 2010). Here, TNF is linked to acute lung injury.