Topic summary
TNF-α
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Tumor necrosis factor.
Nomenclature
In 1985, TNF was found to have significant sequential and functional similarity with lymphotoxin, a previously discovered cytokine. This led to the renaming of TNF to TNF-α and lymphotoxin to TNF-β. However, in 1993, a protein with close similarity to lymphotoxin was discovered, termed lymphotoxin-β. In 1998, at the Seventh International TNF Congress, TNF-β was officially renamed to lymphotoxin-α, while TNF-α was renamed back to TNF. Nevertheless, some papers continue to use the term TNF-α.