TNF and pulmonary fibrosis: In rodent models of lung fibrosis, mice exposed to BLM displayed increased expression of TNFα that was associated with TGFβ levels (Ortiz et al., 1998; Brass et al., 1999; Hou et al., 2018); moreover, adenoviral mediated TNFα overexpression in otherwise normal rat lungs resulted in upregulation of TGFβ1 and accumulation of αSMA expressing myofibroblasts (Sime et al., 1998).