Although STING activation was shown to cause cell death in some cells such as T lymphocytes in an IFN-independent manner (Gaidt et al., 2017; Gulen et al., 2017; Larkin et al., 2017), the contribution of STING-induced cell death in this arthritis model may be minor, as blocking TNF-α alone prevented the development of arthritis in DNase II−/−STINGS365A/S365A mice (Fig. 6, A and B). This evidence concerns the gene IFNA1 and arthritic joint disease.