TNF and acute myeloid leukemia: Second, certain serine proteases can trigger both cytokine expression/release and cleavage; this has been described both for IL6, TNFα and IL8/CXCL8 (all three can be secreted by AML cells), and such protease effects can be mediated by Toll-like receptors (TLRs) that also are expressed by primary AML cells [69,70].