STING1 and stage 5 chronic kidney disease: APOL1 risk alleles G1 and G2, which are associated with faster progress to lupus nephritis-associated end-stage renal disease (LN-ESRD) in African Americans, have been reported to be upregulated by the activation of the cGAS‒STING pathway and IFN signaling in human immortalized podocytes (Davis et al., 2019), suggesting a potential link between the cGAS‒STING pathway and LN-ESRD.