ELISA results showed that the secretion level of TNF-α by hGECs in the coaggregation group was significantly higher than that in other groups at 24 h of infection (***p <0.001, ###p <0.001, #compared with the control group), while no difference was found between groups at 0.5 h, 2 h, and 6 h. This evidence concerns the gene TNF and infection.