CHRNA1 and autoimmune disease: Irf8 (3rd rank factor in NMJ) is also interesting as mutation of an Irf8 binding site in the CHRNA promoter causes CHRNA misexpression in the thymus and leads to the autoimmune disease myasthenia gravis56, implicating Irf8 in the control of an NMJ gene in a tissue outside of the muscle.