Published in:
01-08-2018 | Letter to the Editor
Searching peripheral blood mononuclear cells of children with viral respiratory tract infections preceding islet autoimmunity for viruses by high-throughput sequencing
Authors:
Markus Hippich, Alexandra Oleynik, Komal Jain, Christiane Winkler, Ricardo C. Ferreira, Ezio Bonifacio, Anette-Gabriele Ziegler, Thomas Briese
Published in:
Acta Diabetologica
|
Issue 8/2018
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Excerpt
To the Editor: Viral infections are discussed to cause autoimmune beta cell destruction leading to type 1 diabetes [
1,
2]. Several recent prospective studies show evidence that respiratory tract infections are associated with an increased risk of beta cell autoimmunity and type 1 diabetes if they are encountered early in life (e.g., [
3]). Consistent with this, the expression of an antiviral type 1 interferon (IFN) transcriptional signature is increased in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of genetically predisposed infants before the development of beta cell autoantibodies [
4]. The upregulation of IFN-inducible genes is transient and correlates with recent self-reported incidence of respiratory infections. …
