TNF and infection: Similar to the observation that CD43 absence reduced the production of TNF-α, IL-12, and IL-6 in the macrophages infected by M. tuberculosis [40], we detected significantly higher TNF-α and IL-6 in the RAW264.7 cells transfected by pCMV-HN-SPN compared with pCMV-HN-SPN, after the infection by H37Ra strain at an MOI of 10:1 (Fig. 3F).