TNF and infection: Infection-related or non-infection-related factors can activate inflammatory cells to release a variety of cytokines and inflammatory mediators, such as IL-1, IL-6, IL-8, IL-12, TNF-α, NO, leukotriene B4, IFNα, and IFNβ (McNab et al., 2015; Chen et al., 2017) to participate in the body’s inflammatory immune response in order to resist external pathogenic factors.