Among the three investigated SNPs, only the rs573775 SNP was significantly associated with disease susceptibility with the variant allele conferring a higher risk of developing SLE (OR = 1.50, p = 0.018 and OR = 1.48, p = 0.007 at the genotypic and allelic level, respectively).
In conclusion, the Atg5 rs573775 T* allele seems to influence SLE susceptibility, cytokine production and disease features depending on other factors such as functional IL-10 genotype.