GNAQ and Autoimmunity: In a previous study we demonstrated that Gnaq−/− chimeras could spontaneously develop manifestations of systemic autoimmune disease with high titer antinuclear antibody and inflammatory arthritis, and B cells from Gnaq−/− mice have an intrinsic survival advantage over normal B cells, suggesting that Gαq is critically important for maintaining control of peripheral B-cell tolerance induction and repressing autoimmunity [24].