Associations within the MHC region for several autoimmune diseases, such as RA, CeD, AS, T1D, Graves’ disease, and DM, and HBV infection are driven by variants and alleles around HLA-DPB1 (Table 1), implying that viruses like HBV could trigger autoimmunity. This evidence concerns the gene HLA-DPB1 and rheumatoid arthritis.