Under conditions of cellular stress, such as the presence of reactive oxygen species (ROS) (Dumitru et al., 2007), Tumor necrosis factor (TNF-α) (Edelmann et al., 2011), proinflammatory cytokine interleukin 1β (IL-1β) (Nalivaeva et al., 2000), viral and bacterial infections (Wangb et al., 2019), etc., sphingomyelinase becomes activated. Here, TNF is linked to bacterial infectious disease.