IFNA1 and systemic lupus erythematosus: In a final series of experiments, we investigated whether highly purified neutrophils from SLE patients with active disease (SLEDAI > 5, see Table 1 for patient characterization), thus constitutively displaying remarkably elevated levels of IFN-dependent genes, such as IFIT1, LGP2, IGS15, OASL and MDA5 (Fig. 7a), produce more IL-6 than neutrophils from healthy donors (HD) in response to TLR8 and/or TLR7 agonists.