The skewed frequency of B-cell subpopulation CD19<sup>+</sup> CD24 <sup>hi</sup> CD38 <sup>hi</sup> cells in peripheral blood mononuclear cells is correlated with the elevated serum sCD40L in patients with active systemic lupus erythematosus.
Finally, CD24 genetic variants, including single-nucleotide polymorphisms and deletions, are etiologically relevant to autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus erythematosus.
Our observations indicate that the CD24Ala57Val polymorphism may predispose to SLE incidence and can be linked to immunologic manifestations and production of autoantibodies in this disease.