TNF and necrotizing enterocolitis: It has been demonstrated in various experimental models of NEC that the addition of human, bovine and porcine MEX attenuated the expression of inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin 6 (IL-6), interleukin 1β (IL-1β) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) [84,92,148,161,162], TLR4 [162,163] and nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) [162].