TAMPA, Fla. (June 4, 2021) — Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is an autoimmune disease in which a misdirected immune system gradually destroys healthy pancreatic islet β cells, resulting in a lack of insulin. The exact cause of T1D remains unknown. However, β cell-reactive autoantibodies can be detected in circulating blood months to years before diagnosis, raising the possibility of intervening to stop or delay T1D before children develop the disease.
Monitoring the number, type, and concentration of autoantibodies appearing in the blood can help predict the long-term risk of progression from autoimmunity to symptomatic T1D.
Now new findings suggest that measuring how patterns of gene expression in white blood cells change in children starting in infancy – before autoantibodies appear indicating an autoimmune reaction against the β cells – can predict earlier and more robustly which genetically-susceptible individuals will progress to T1D. The comprehensive international study included co-investigators from the University of South Florida Health Informatics Institute (HII).
The research was published on March 31 in Science Translational Medicine .
HII Director Jeffrey Krischer, PhD , a professor in the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine’s Department of Internal Medicine , and Hemang M. Parikh, PhD , an assistant professor of bioinformatics in the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics , were co-investigators of the study led by the UK researchers at the University of Cambridge.
“Our identification of specific changes in the blood related to natural killer cells provides evidence for the potential involvement of these immune cells in the onset or progression of type 1 diabetes in asymptomatic children,” Dr. Parikh said. “This creates a possible new target for early therapeutic intervention using immune modulation.”
This study was based on blood samples longitudinally collected from 400 children in The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young (TEDDY) consortium as they grew older, from birth to age 6. (TEDDY follows children at risk of developing T1D, collecting blood and other samples long before disease symptoms emerge.)
Using genomic approaches and bioinformatics analytical methods, the blood samples were processed to measure the expression of thousands of genes simultaneously. This allowed researchers to identify which genes were switched on and off in each child at varying points in time.
Among the study’s key findings:
“This type of large-scale research is only possible through the collaboration of many people, including healthy children at risk for T1D, patients with T1D, their families, and countless others,” Dr. Parikh added. “USF is fortunate to play a part in such huge international efforts to tackle this complex autoimmune disease.”
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The work was supported by multiple grants from the National Institutes of Health . USF Health’s Dr. Krischer leads the coordinating center for the NIH-funded TEDDY consortium.
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Science Translational Medicine