Balandraud and colleagues, for example, have shown that patients with RA expressing HLA-DRB1*0404 (i.e. SE positive) have higher EBV viral DNA load in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) than patients expressing HLA-DRB1*07 (i.e. SE negative) [35], although the difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.08). Here, HLA-DRB1 is linked to rheumatoid arthritis.