Systemic lupus erythematosus is a chronic, multi-organ, autoimmune disease that typically affects young women of child-bearing age, and can be more severe and debilitating when diagnosed in childhood. To date, it is difficult to diagnose early in disease course and its treatment can be difficult, without good measures of response to therapy. To date, our group has demonstrated differences in the function of the genomes of children with lupus compared to healthy children. We propose to investigate how these differences affect the genes expressed in lupus patients that are not expressed in healthy children. Having this information will provide us with clues to how disease develops and how individual patients may respond to treatment.