Importantly, cGAS also detects mitochondrial DNA and nuclear DNA mis-located in the cytosol under certain conditions, which plays a key role in certain autoimmune diseases and inflammatory responses during radiotherapy for cancer (West et al., 2015; Fang et al., 2016; Harding et al., 2017; Mackenzie et al., 2017). This evidence concerns the gene CGAS and autoimmune disease.