A recent publication showed that in hypoxic renal tissue as a consequence of inflammation in lupus-prone mice, renal infiltrating CD4 and CD8 T cells in fact become more resistant to cell death by the expression of hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1) and that HIF-1-dependent gene-regulated pathways were also upregulated in renal-infiltrating T cells in human lupus nephritis (Chen et al. 2020). The gene discussed is CD4; the disease is systemic lupus erythematosus.