Revisiting the role of tumor necrosis factor α and the response to surgical injury and inflammation

Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) is a pleiotropic cytokine with diverse biological actions. Studies originally identified TNF-alpha as a systemic mediator of endotoxemic shock, cachexia, and tumor regression. We now recognize that TNF-alpha is a member of a large family of proteins, including Fas ligand, whose actions are primarily paracrine in nature, and serve to regulate both cell-proliferation and apoptotic death. Although clinical trials with TNF-alpha inhibitors in sepsis syndrome have been disappointing to date, and TNF-alpha administration has not proven widely successful as an antineoplastic agent, preliminary successes with TNF-alpha inhibition have been recently reported in more chronic inflammatory diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis and ulcerative colitis. The recent description of the TNF-alpha converting enzyme responsible for the processing of cell-associated to secreted TNF-alpha has opened a new therapeutic avenue to address inflammatory diseases dependent on the release of 17-kd secreted TNF-alpha. Similarly, inhibitors of nuclear factor Kappa B activation can increase TNF-alpha-mediated apoptosis and have rejuvenated efforts to explore TNF-alpha's antineoplastic potential. The multiple and often conflicting TNF-alpha signaling pathways reveal a diversity to TNF-alpha's actions not fully appreciated in the past. Such investigations have opened a number of novel therapeutic interventions to either inhibit or potentiate the actions of TNF-alpha during surgical injury or acute inflammation.