AIRE and autoimmune disease: More recently, Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS) have also implicated AIRE in several common organ-specific autoimmune diseases including autoimmune primary adrenal insufficiency, type 1 diabetes and pernicious anemia.<h4>Methods</h4>We developed a highly sensitive cell-system approach based on HEK293FT cells transfected with AIRE that allowed us to characterise and functionally evaluate the transcriptional potential of genetic variants in the AIRE gene.