The effects of TNF plus IL-18, IFN-γ or IL-1β encompassed a high proportion of sepsis biomarker genes, 45.7% (118/258), 43.8% (113/258) or 32.6% (84/258), respectively, compared to the other 12 cytokine pairs tested (8.1% ± 7.3% s.d.; Extended Data Fig. 3d). Here, TNF is linked to Sepsis.