The cluster of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) risk genes that gave suggestive associations in our dataset appear to create a complex immune phenotype, with increased numbers of dendritic cells and a skewing away from the naive and memory subsets in CD8+ T cells and B cells, respectively (Franke et al., 2010, Jostins et al., 2012, Liu et al., 2015). Here, CD8A is linked to inflammatory bowel disease.