Although we could not demonstrate susceptibility toward lupus in the presence of IRF5 rs2004640 (G/T) polymorphism, further exploration of the genetic variability of IRF5 may help uncover its pathogenic role in Indian SLE patients.
Importantly, our data suggest that in patients with lupus, the presence of the HLA lupus risk alleles in rs1270942 and rs3131379 increases the odds of also carrying the lupus risk allele in IRF5 (rs2070197) by 17% and 16%, respectively (P = 0.0028 and P = 0.0047, respectively).