It should be noted that the human MHC was first associated with SLE in 1971, when studies demonstrated that lupus probands were enriched for the class I alleles HL-A8 (now known as HLA-B8) and HLA-W15 (now known as HLA-B15) when compared with healthy controls [18,19]. The gene discussed is HLA-C; the disease is systemic lupus erythematosus.