TNF and infection: A study conducted by Sun and colleagues (Sun et al., 2015) found a susceptibility of human hepatic epithelial cells to SFTSV, and in HepG2 cells, TNF-α and FasL were induced robustly up to 36- and 21-fold in 72h after infection of SFTSV, this latter finding indicates an extrinsic apoptotic pathway was fully activated in HepG2 by NF-KB signal pathway, moreover, pro-inflammatory cytokines including serum IL-6 and TNF-α dramatically increased as the severity of the disease increases, while inhibition of TLR3 expression was peripheral mDCs and monocytes in SFTS deceased cases (Song et al., 2017).