Scientists have found dangerous T-cells in the body's pancreatic tissue

The pancreas is filled with clusters of cells called islets, which contain β cells that help the body make insulin to regulate the body's blood sugar levels, but in people with type 1 diabetes, the body's T cells mistakenly move to the islet and kill β cells.
Photo Source: Von Herrath Laby, La Jolla Institute for Immunology Previously, the presence of autologn reaction T cells in the pancreas was 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, autolognative 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 preproinsulin, a pre-insulin molecule called insulin.
Previous studies have shown that some of these T-cells do exist in the blood of healthy people, but no one knows if they move into pancreatic tissue, in part because researchers are unable to effectively obtain samples of human pancreatic tissue.
study, researchers used a new dyeing technique to reveal the cells' location in accurate samples of human tissue.
they were surprised to find that even healthy people's pancreatic tissue was home to pre-insulin-specific T-cells.
the researchers were surprised that large numbers of T-cells in the body's pancreas appeared to be present by default, regardless of whether the individual had diabetes or not.
, of course, each supply 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.
researchers are not sure if this is the cause of type 1 diabetes, but these T-cells appear to be the main suspects.
The results of this paper add to evidence that type 1 diabetes may not be caused by abnormally functioning T-cells attacking β cells, but rather by the fact that a large number of these T-cells have been produced in the body, but rather by certain abnormalities in the pancreas that induce T-cell attacks, which may hopefully help researchers develop effective type 1 diabetes therapies that can be treated locally in 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 This article was originally sourced from Bio Valley, please download Bio Valley APP for more information (