IRF5 and autoimmune disease: Variants of genes within the IFN pathway like interferon regulatory factor (IRF)-5 have been associated with SLE by multiple studies[12,13] and have been repeatedly implicated in susceptibility to several other autoimmune diseases including rheumatoid arthritis[14], multiple sclerosis[15,16], inflammatory bowel disease[17] and Sjogren’s syndrome[12,18].