Preventing Type 1 diabetes by deleting a stress response gene

Preventing Type 1 diabetes by deleting a stress response gene

Source: 
Fierce Biotech
snippet: 

In Type 1 diabetes, the immune system’s T cells mistakenly attack insulin-producing beta cells. Physicians can identify many patients who are at risk for developing the disease using blood tests to identify abnormal autoantibodies, but there’s nothing they can do to actually prevent the disease.

Now, scientists at the University of Wisconsin (UW)-Madison are proposing a new approach to preventing Type 1 diabetes: by deleting a gene in beta cells that controls the response to stress. When they removed the gene, called IRE1-alpha, in the beta cells of mice, the cells changed into mature insulin producers. More importantly, T cells stopped attacking them. They reported their findings in the journal Cell Metabolism.