IFIT1 and autoimmune disease: In addition, the most overexpressed genes with the largest ESs were RSAD2 and IFI44L. IFI44L encodes the IFN-induced protein 44-like, which has been described in several autoimmune diseases in conjunction with other genes involved in the type I IFN signaling pathway, such as IFIT1, IFI27 and IFITM1. We also found overexpression of these genes in our results.