We observed notable overlap for autoimmune diseases as compared with 10,000 random gene sets selected from the full network (Ai6: odds ratio (OR) 1.57, p = 0.042, family-wise error rate (FWER) 0.443; Ai21: OR 1.55, p = 0.028, FWER 0.330) (Fig. 6a and Additional file 6: Table S5), and therefore corresponding to genes expressed in CD4+ T cells during activation/differentiation. This evidence concerns the gene CD4 and autoimmune disease.