To understand which molecules were responsible for this activity we performed experiments of THP1 activation with tumor cell supernatants in the presence of neutralizing Abs and BoxA to inhibit IL-1α, TNF-α, IL-18 and HMGB1, respectively, which are released by tumor cells (Additional file 4: Figure S4 and Additional file 6: Figure S6). The gene discussed is HMGB1; the disease is neoplasm.