Diminished complications in a non DR3 DR4 family with insulin-dependent diabetes.
A family is reported in which the mother and both of her children developed insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus between 9 and 19 months of age, reflecting the importance of heredity in the natural history of this disease. That overt complications of diabetes were not present in any of the individuals, and that blood sugars were maintained close to normal on relatively small amounts of exogenous insulin, suggests a protective function in these patients related to residual secretion of insulin by beta cells. Human lymphocyte antigen (HLA) typing in this family showed that, although the diabetic children had identical HLA types, neither the mother nor her children possessed the diabetes-associated antigen HLA-DR3 or HLA-DR4. This raises the possibility that selective loss of diabetes-susceptible fetuses (suggested to be responsible for the low risk of diabetic mothers producing diabetic offspring) may be influenced by the HLA type of the mother.
McArthur
R G
RG
Julia McFarlane Diabetes Research Unit, Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Field
L L
LL
Yoon
J W
JW
Boyd
N
N
Graham
J M
JM
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001323:Autoantibodies / Q000032:analysis; D002096:C-Peptide / Q000097:blood; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003922:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1 / Q000150:complications* / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006442:Glycated Hemoglobin / Q000032:analysis; D006684:HLA-DR Antigens / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007515:Islets of Langerhans / Q000276:immunology; D008297:Male
D001323:Autoantibodies; D002096:C-Peptide; D006442:Glycated Hemoglobin; D006684:HLA-DR Antigens