TNF and renal fibrosis: Inflammatory cytokines, such as tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-1β (IL-1β), and IL-6, can directly mediate renal fibrosis through inflammatory infiltration, fibroblast activation and synthesis and degradation of ECM (Andrade et al., 2019; Gorjipour et al., 2019; Shrikant, 2019).