Two recent studies have added weight to the long-standing hypothesis that viral infections can trigger autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes in genetically susceptible individuals.
In a study published in
Diabetologica
(6 Mar 2009), Morgan and colleagues assayed for enteroviral capsid protein vp1 in the pancreas of patients with type 1 diabetes who had died within a year of developing the disease. The samples had been collected over the past 25 years by Alan Foulis of the Royal Infirmary in Glasgow, UK, who commented that “only very recently [have] techniques of sufficient sensitivity to detect the virus in such specimens been developed.” (
EurekAlert!
, 5 Mar 2009). vp1 was detected in multiple islets of 44 out of the 72 patient samples, compared with 3 out of 50 control samples; this is probably a conservative estimate as the protein isn't completely stable, according to study author Adrian Bone (
New Scientist
, 5 Mar 2009). This is the first time that enterovirus infection of pancreatic β-cells has been linked with type 1 diabetes in such a large sample size.
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