TNF and infection: In addition, the patients infected with TM have previously been reported to have higher TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-12, and IL-10 levels in vivo, and the infection of TM enabled the enhancement of the production of cytokines such as TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-6, and IL-12 by stimulating macrophages in vitro (Dai et al., 2017; Dong et al., 2019).