CD4 and autoimmune disease: To date, autophagy in SLE T cells has been examined and found to be activated in the naïve CD4+ T cell compartment by Alessandri et al,5–8 and the total CD4+ population by Gros et al. 9, 10 However, autophagy in B cells, which are of fundamental importance in SLE, the hallmark of which is the production of pathogenic high affinity autoantibodies,11, 12 has not yet been studied in human autoimmune disease.