A study of cell-mediated immunity in type 1 diabetes using an antigen presentation assay.
The ability of macrophages to present a given antigen to homologous, immune T lymphocytes was studied in 21 patients with Type 1 diabetes and in 21 healthy control subjects. The patient group was heterogeneous with a broad range of age and duration of diabetes. An antigen presentation assay consisting of a co-culture of antigen-pulsed macrophages with autologous, immune T lymphocytes was used with purified protein derivative of tuberculin as antigen. Diabetic patients had responses similar to or higher than control subjects. Nevertheless diabetic patients had a tendency to higher T-lymphocyte proliferation values with increasing age and duration of diabetes. Correlation analysis showed a marginally significant correlation (p = 0.05) between proliferation and age and a highly significant correlation (p less than 0.01) between T-lymphocyte proliferation and duration of diabetes.
d'Amore
F
F
Department of Internal Medicine, Vejle Hospital, Vejle, Denmark.
Wolthers
O D
OD
D000328:Adult; D000938:Antigen-Presenting Cells / Q000276:immunology*; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D003922:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1 / Q000276:immunology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007111:Immunity, Cellular; D008213:Lymphocyte Activation; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012016:Reference Values; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology*