Sci Adv: Scientists find dangerous T-cells in the body's pancreatic tissue or hopefully reveal new mechanisms for type 1 diabetes!

24, 2020 // -- In a recent study published in the international journal Science Advances, scientists from the La Jolla Institute for Immunology and others successfully targeted dangerous T-cells in the body's pancreas, even in healthy people; Islet cell clusters, for most people, have a comfortable β cell that helps the body make insulin to regulate the body's blood sugar levels, but in people with type 1 diabetes, the body's T cells move incorrectly into the islet and kill β cells.
Photo Source: Von Herrath Laboratory, La Jolla Institute for Immunology previously believed that T cells with autologn reactions in the pancreas were the exact sign of type 1 diabetes, but in this study, researchers found that even in healthy people's pancreatic tissue, there may be a large number of such cells, autolognical reactive T cells.
researcher Professor Mattias von Herrath said: 'These T-cells are like predators, we always think that when the predator is there β the cells will die, but in fact the T-cells are already there and they seem to be waiting for a signal to start attacking.
These "predator" cells are CD8-plus T cells that specifically target a specific molecule called preproinsulin, a pre-insulin molecule that previously showed that some of these T-cells do exist in the blood of healthy people, but no one knows if these T-cells move into pancreatic tissue, in part because researchers are unable to effectively obtain samples of human pancreatic tissue.
For the study, researchers used a new dyeing technique to reveal the location of these cells in precise samples of human tissue, and were surprised to find that pre-insulin-specific T-cells were found in pancreatic tissue in healthy people.
Whether an individual has diabetes or not, the presence of a large number of T-cells in the body's pancreas seems to be the default, which the researchers say is surprising, of course, that each body is different, but overall the number is quite high.
people with type 1 diabetes may be worse off because analysis of their tissue samples shows that T cells are very close to soaking the entire islet tissue.
So far, researchers aren't sure if this is the cause of type 1 diabetes, but these T-cells appear to be the main suspects; the findings add to evidence that type 1 diabetes may not be caused by abnormally functioning T-cells attacking β cells, but rather that a large number of these T-cells have been produced in the body, but rather that some abnormalities in the pancreas have triggered T-cell attacks, which may hopefully help researchers develop effective type 1 diabetes therapy that can be treated locally with the pancreas.
next step, the researchers plan to delve deeper into the behavioral mechanisms of pre-insulin-specific T-cells, and they will also conduct in-depth studies of other proteins in the islet that may attack or behave in T-cells.
original source: Christine Bender, Teresa Rodriguez-Calvo, Natalie Amirian, et al. The healthy exocrine pancreas contains preproinsulin-specific CD8 T cells that attack islets type 1 diabetes, Advances (2020). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abc5586.