Recently, the upregulation of SPP1 has been revealed in various autoimmune diseases [including systemic lupus erythematosus (Wong et al., 2005)], inflammatory diseases [including Crohn’s disease (Sato et al., 2005) and multiple sclerosis (MS) (Chabas et al., 2001)], and neurodegenerative diseases (NDDs) such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) (Wung et al., 2007; Comi et al., 2010). The gene discussed is SPP1; the disease is systemic lupus erythematosus.