Therefore, a full, high throughput methylation profiling study is needed to identify the differentially methylated sites at specific DLK1-Dio3 domains such as DMRs and/or CpG enrich regions located at the two major miRNA coding region, asRTL1 and Mirg between MRL and MRL-lpr mice, which lead to the LOI and upregulation of DLK1-Dio3 miRNAs directly in lupus. Here, DIO3 is linked to systemic lupus erythematosus.