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Connective tissue diseases

Targeting type I interferon in systemic lupus erythematosus

Nature Reviews Rheumatology volume 12, pages 377–378 (2016)Cite this article

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Type I interferon (IFN) is an attractive therapeutic target in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), a notion bolstered by the positive results of a recent clinical trial of the anti-IFN antibody sifalimumab in patients with SLE. Interestingly, sifalimumab worked best in patients with high expression of IFN-induced genes, supporting the idea that subgroups of patients might be targeted specifically.

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Figure 1: The mechanism of action of anti-IFN therapies currently in development for SLE.

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Acknowledgements

T.B.N.'s work is supported by NIH grants (AR060861, AR057781, AR065964, AI071651), the Rheumatology Research Foundation, the CureJM Foundation, the Mayo Clinic Foundation, the Lupus Research Institute, and the Lupus Foundation of Minnesota.

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  1. Division of Rheumatology, Department of Immunology, Mayo Clinic, 200 1st Street South West, Guggenheim Building 3–42, Rochester, 55905, Minnesota, USA

    Timothy B. Niewold

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  1. Timothy B. Niewold
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Correspondence to Timothy B. Niewold.

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T.B.N. declares that he has received research grants from Janssen and EMD Serono.

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Niewold, T. Targeting type I interferon in systemic lupus erythematosus. Nat Rev Rheumatol 12, 377–378 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrrheum.2016.83

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