As shown in Figure 1H,I, Valentini scleroderma disease activity indexes (SDAIs) of SSc patients were inversely correlated with CD11a promoter methylation and positively correlated with the level of expression of CD11a mRNA (r = -0.536, P =0.039 and r =0.517, P =0.0285, respectively). The gene discussed is ITGAL; the disease is scleroderma.