PTPRC and autoimmune disease: There are an increasing number of examples in which the genetically determined modulation of alternative splicing has been implicated in common complex disease traits, such as the associations between the G protein-coupled receptor (GPRA) and asthma susceptibility [14], cytotoxic T lymphocyte antigen 4 (CTLA4) and autoimmune disease [15], and the CD45 (leucocyte common) antigen and infectious and autoimmune diseases [16,17].