A previous study [23] also investigating gene expression changes in various tissues (pancreatic lymph nodes, spleen and peripheral blood cells) and at various ages (10 days, 4 weeks, 12 weeks, 16 weeks, or 20 weeks) in NOD mice compared to NOD.B10 mice (in which a non-permissive MHC haplotype is imposed onto NOD to silence autoimmune disease) also reported that the great majority of identified NOD differentially expressed genes were down regulated (except only with peripheral blood cells at 4 weeks). The gene discussed is HLA-C; the disease is autoimmune disease.