Later, at 20 dpi, Nc-Spain1H maintained the RNA levels of pro-inflammatory cytokine expression (P < 0.05–0.001) whereas the infection by Nc-Spain7 induced a drastic expression of IFN-γ (1000-fold mean); followed by TNF-α (100-fold mean), IL-12p40 (30-fold mean), IL-1β, IL-8, and iNOS (tenfold mean; P < 0.001–0.0001) (Figure  1C). Here, TNF is linked to infection.