High-resolution, high-throughput single-cell omics has transformed our understanding of autoimmune disease pathogenesis. We synthesise recent single-cell omics advances across six autoimmune diseases—systemic sclerosis, systemic lupus erythematosus, Sjögren’s syndrome, ankylosing spondylitis, IgG4-related disease and rheumatoid arthritis. We further summarise translational progress in targeted therapies. We delineate core pathological networks shared across these conditions, highlight convergent mechanisms, and provide a mechanistic rationale for the clinical activity of agents such as tofacitinib and abatacept across multiple autoimmune settings. These insights support the feasibility of mechanism-informed, cross-disease targeting—deploying shared pathway interventions across distinct clinical entities. Finally, we discuss current technical and interpretative challenges and outline future directions for mechanistic discovery, target prioritisation and precision medicine.
Wan et al. (Thu,) studied this question.