SARS-CoV-2 infection can trigger a cytokine storm by activating immune cells, thereby releasing large amounts of cytokines (eg, IL-6 and TNF-α) and leading to systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) and multi-organ dysfunction (MODS), which often affect the liver (Premkumar and Kedarisetty, 2021;Naeem et al., 2023). The gene discussed is TNF; the disease is systemic inflammatory response syndrome.