TNF and atherosclerosis: Endothelial activation induced by lipopolysaccharide (LPS, endotoxin) and pro-inflammatory cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) is characterized by increased inflammatory cytokine production and adhesion molecule expression (Hunt and Jurd, 1998) which are two important steps in the development of atherosclerosis (Yan et al., 2015).