LINC01229 and MAF could mediate serum urate homeostasis through known inhibin pathways such as apoptosis (Denkova et al., 2004) and inflammation (Okuma et al., 2005) consistent with our GO analyses, which identified ‘negative regulation of cell apoptotic process’ and ‘interleukin 1 β secretion’ as enriched terms for LINC01229. In addition to this ‘interleukin 1 β secretion’ is strongly implicated in gout (So and Martinon, 2017). This evidence concerns the gene MAF and gout.