TNF and rheumatoid arthritis: In recent years, the advent of biologic therapies has markedly enhanced treatment outcomes for RA by specifically targeting cytokines and immune cell pathways implicated in the pathogenesis of the disease, such as tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, interleukin (IL)-6, and B cells (Feldmann and Maini, 2001; van Vollenhoven, 2009; Wu et al., 2021).