Fat on the outer HG wall was removed and the tissue was cut open on a sterile bench and the contents removed. The tissue was washed for 30 s in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) at 4°C to remove mucus, then cut into pieces and weighed. The pieces were transferred to a Tissuelyser-24, and nine times the volume of PBS buffer was added before homogenization for 30 s at 4°C. The homogenate was centrifuged for 20 min at 3,000 rpm and 4°C. The supernatant was collected and stored at -80°C until measurement of TNF-α concentration.
A TNF-α enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit (Cusabio Biotech, Wuhan, China) was used to measure TNF-α concentration according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Absorbance was read on a full-wavelength Multiskan GO microplate reader (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, United States) with a sensitivity <50 pg/mL.