Over the last decade, genome-wide association studies, which use single-nucleotide polymorphism arrays to identify genetic variants with pathogenetic effects in large patient populations, have been conducted for many autoimmune diseases, and new techniques such as high-throughput proteomics and exome sequencing are disclosing novel key-regulators of both immune tolerance and IL-1β biosynthesis. This evidence concerns the gene IL1B and autoimmune disease.