Spontaneous diabetes occurring in "BB" rats (derived from a colony of outbred Wistar rats) is the result of destruction of pancreatic islets by infiltrating mononuclear cells (insulitis) and may be a disease very similar to human juvenile onset diabetes. Both diseases probably have an autoimmune etiology. Evidence is presented that islets transplanted to diabetic BB rats are destroyed by the or...

When compared with laboratory chow, a defined, semipurified diet prevented diabetes, reduced the frequency of insulitis, increased thymus weight and total white blood cell count, and doubled thymus T-helper/T-suppressor cell ratios in diabetes-prone BB rats. These data show that the diabetic syndrome in BB rats may be prevented or delayed by changes in diet, which may occur through alteration o...

Several polymers were used to delivery genes to diabetic animals. Polyaminobutyl glycolic acid was utilized to deliver IL-10 plasmid DNA to prevent autoimmune insulitis of non-obese diabetic (NOD) mouse. Polyethylene glycol grafted polylysine was combined with antisense glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) MRNA to represent GAD autoantigene expression. GLP1 and TSTA (SP-EX4) were delivered by bior...

shown to decrease hyperglycemia and insulitis through attenuation of the Th1 immune response and expansion of T regulatory lymphocytes [3]. Up till now, such a response has not been described for human ASCs. Now, in a study in Stem Cells, Carmella Evans-Molina from Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, USA, have studied a role for hASC-derived factors in a mouse model of streptoz...

Several genetic and environmental factors appear to cooperate to precipitate type1 diabetes, a spontaneous autoimmune disease in humans and in the nonobese diabetic (NOD) mouse. NOD mice, like type1 diabetic patients, develop insulitis, an early infiltration of leukocytes into the pancreas that leads to inflammatory lesions within the islets. However, overt type1 diabetes requires the subsequen...

Exosomes (EXO) are secreted intracellular microparticles that can trigger inflammation and induce Ag-specific immune responses. To test possible roles of EXO in autoimmunity, we isolated small microparticles, mainly EXO, from mouse insulinoma and examined their activities to stimulate the autoimmune responses in NOD mice, a model for human type 1 diabetes. We demonstrate that the EXO contains s...

Four pancreatic islet-specific CD4+ helper T (Th) 1 (Th1) clones and two Th1 clones transduced with an SRalpha promoter-linked murine IL-10 (mIL-10) cDNA of 2.0-6.0 x 10(6) cells were adoptively transferred to nonobese diabetic (NOD) mice at age 8 d. Cyclophosphamide (CY) was administered at age 37 d (plus CY), and the incidence of diabetes and the histological grade of insulitis were examined ...