VDAC1 and systemic lupus erythematosus: Kim et al. found in the mice model of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) that when mitochondria are stressed in multiple ways, the fragmented mtDNA binds to the VDAC on the OMM, which causes multiple VDAC monomers to cluster together and form a mesopore in their middle, allowing mtDNA to be released into the cytoplasm through this mesopore by direct interaction between the three positively charged residues at the N-terminal end of the VDAC and mtDNA (Kim et al., 2019).