There were no significant relationships between the percentages of BCD achieved by rituximab in the whole blood BCD assay in samples from patients with SLE and age (years) of patients with RA or SLE with r2, Spearman’s correlation coefficient, values of 0.07 (P > 0.1) and 0.01 (P > 0.4), respectively, or disease duration of patients with RA or SLE with r2, Spearman’s correlation coefficient, values of 0.01 (P > 0.5) and 0.02 (P > 0.2) or serum C3 levels with spearman r2 of –0.17 (P = 0.37), respectively (Fig.  3). The gene discussed is C3; the disease is systemic lupus erythematosus.