CGAS and autoimmune disease: cGAS is a crucial component of the cGAS–stimulator of interferon gamma (IFN) genes (STING) signalling cascade that is required for the IFN type I response in immune cells (Sun et al, 2013), making it an important player in activation of pro‐inflammatory response in autoimmune diseases (Gao et al, 2015; Kato et al, 2018).