STAT4 and systemic lupus erythematosus: SLE involves genetic, epigenetic, and environmental factors (Xu et al., 2025; Qiu et al., 2025; Martinez and Kaplan, 2025), with STAT4 regulating immune activation and IL-6 driving B-cell hyperactivity (Liu et al., 2024a; Guerrero et al., 2023), parallels to pSS, though SLE is defined by systemic autoantibody deposition (Huang et al., 2025; Liu et al., 2024b).