Nonetheless, Koga and colleagues in 2011 evaluated 282 Japanese SLE patients and 222 healthy controls in order to assess the cumulative number of risk alleles associated with SNPs of HLA-DRB1, IRF5, STAT4, BLK, TNFAIP3, TNIP1, FCGR2B, and TNFSF13 genes. This evidence concerns the gene STAT4 and systemic lupus erythematosus.