In accordance with the literature, we found that a considerable proportion of the SLE patients had increased IL-6 levels in their sera (Fig. 1A), and that IL-6 was significantly elevated in SLE (median 3.64 [range 0.69–69.26] vs 0.89 [0.12–10.49] pg/ml in healthy individuals, P < 0.0001) and correlated with SLE disease activity measured by ECLAM (Spearman r = 0.40, P = 0.0088) (Supplementary Fig. S1A, available at Rheumatology online). Here, IL6 is linked to systemic lupus erythematosus.