A viral cure for type 1 diabetes
Viruses can both cause and prevent autoimmune disease. In order to understand this dualism, Matthias von Herrath and colleagues from the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology in California exposed prediabetic mice to viral infections. In the January 2 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation the authors report that infection with lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) during the prediabetic period completely abolished the diabetic process in two distinct mouse models.
This protection against the development of type 1 diabetes correlated with a reduced number of autoaggressive CD8 T cells in pancreatic islets. Increased production of the chemokine CXCL-10 in pancreatic lymph nodes redirected cells of the immune response away from the b cells. Once in the pancreatic lymph node, CD8 lymphocytes underwent increased apoptosis, which was directly dependent on TNF-a and indirectly on IFN-g production. The data indicate that proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines induced by viral infection can influence ongoing autoaggressive processes beneficially at the preclinical stage if produced at the correct time, location, and level. Therefore viruses that do not directly destroy b cells may actually enhance the course of autoimmune diabetes.
TITLE: Cure of prediabetic mice by viral infections involves lymphocyte recruitment along an IP-10 gradient
AUTHOR CONTACT:
Matthias von Herrath
La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology, San Diego, California, USA.
Phone: 858-558-3571
Fax: 858-558-3579
E-mail: matthias@liai.org
Media Contact
All news from this category: Health and Medicine
This subject area encompasses research and studies in the field of human medicine.
Among the wide-ranging list of topics covered here are anesthesiology, anatomy, surgery, human genetics, hygiene and environmental medicine, internal medicine, neurology, pharmacology, physiology, urology and dental medicine.
Latest posts
Bringing atoms to a standstill: NIST miniaturizes laser cooling
It’s cool to be small. Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have miniaturized the optical components required to cool atoms down to a few thousandths of…
Record-breaking laser link could help us test whether Einstein was right
Scientists from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) and The University of Western Australia (UWA) have set a world record for the most stable transmission of a laser signal through…
Adaptive optics with cascading corrective elements
A cascaded dual deformable phase plate wavefront modulator enables direct AO integration with existing microscopes–doubling the aberration correction range and greatly improving image quality. Microscopy is the workhorse of contemporary…