In one of these studies involving 31 patients with SLE, patients displaying high IFN-α bioactivity (58.1% of them) had a higher frequency of Th17 cells in peripheral blood than those with low IFN-α bioactivity (mean ± SD 1.9 ± 1.0 vs. 1.2 ± 0.9). This evidence concerns the gene IFNA1 and systemic lupus erythematosus.