TNF and diabetes mellitus: DFE administration significantly downregulated the expression level of a set of key genes (such as Il-1β, Il-17r, Inf-γ, Tnf-a, Stat, and NF-κB, etc.)compared with the diabetes group, suggesting that Tnf-a- and Fas/FasL-dependent apoptotic pathways may be inhibited in the islets with DFE administration28,29 (Figure 5).