In summary, our study firstly found that the two variants (rs3077 and rs9277535) of HLA-DP were associated with decreased SLE susceptibility, and the SNP rs3077 was correlated with the lower IL17, IL-1β and INF-γ concentrations in peripheral blood and reduced susceptibility to CV in SLE patients. This evidence concerns the gene IL17A and systemic lupus erythematosus.