Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) is a multifactorial disease with a pathogenesis which remains inexplicable. However, genome-wide association studies brought forward within recent years have discovered several new susceptibility genes, and accumulating evidence supports genetic variability as playing a key role in JIA development. This review summarises the present knowledge of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) and non-HLA polymorphisms conferring disease susceptibility, and discusses the areas in JIA genetics, which are still to be investigated in order to apply JIA genetics in a clinical setting
