ATG5 and systemic lupus erythematosus: Variations in ATG5, a key component of the autophagy pathway, were associated with SLE susceptibility from the beginning of GWAS studies of European American [10], and several recent studies in Asian cohorts have identified four additional autophagy pathway genes (ATG16L2, DRAM1, CDKN1B, and CLC16A) with genome-wide significant associations and seven other autophagy genes with candidate levels of association with SLE [10, 28–32].