Researchers have identified a key target of the immune response that causes type 1 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is an incurable autoimmune disease caused by the destruction of insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas by immune cells called T cells.
This study, published in the journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences).
A specific type of T cell, a CD4+ T cell, recognizes a part of the beta cell (called an antigen) as foreign, initiating the immune response. Researchers have long been searching for the identity of the antigen that drives the disease.
Earlier work from A/Prof Mannering’s group showed that CD4+ T cells in the pancreas of an organ donor who had type 1 diabetes responded to a specific part of insulin’s precursor, proinsulin, known as C-peptide.