In order to understand the link between the presence of adaptive immune effectors in lupus kidney biopsies and decreased kidney function, we went back to the high-throughput transcriptomic data and identified transcripts and pathways that correlated (positively or negatively) with CD3, CD4, CD8 and CD19 transcripts (there was no transcript corresponding to CD20 on the Illumina platform) in lupus kidney biopsy samples. Here, CD8A is linked to systemic lupus erythematosus.