Previous studies have revealed the role of TNF superfamily members in cancer (Flieswasser et al., 2022; Curtis et al., 2023), autoimmune diseases (Tian et al., 2020; Chen et al., 2023), and respiratory diseases (Cho et al., 2020; Cross et al., 2023), which have been proven to be involved with severe COVID-19 (Zhang et al., 2021). The gene discussed is TNF; the disease is autoimmune disease.