A team of researchers, led by the University’s Professor John Todd, are a step closer to developing therapies and preventative treatments for Type 1 juvenile diabetes.

The study, funded by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund (JDRF) and the Wellcome Trust, compared the DNA sequences of a large number of patients with Type 1 diabetes with those from a control group. This identified a gene that contributes to Type 1 susceptibility. This gene is CTLA-4 which exists in both mice and humans and is involved in regulating the immune system.

The results are significant in that they show that the same underlying mechanisms are at work in several autoimmune diseases. It also demonstrates how comparative genetics - looking at similarities and differences between the genomes of two organisms - can be used to more quickly identify the genes responsible for these mechanisms.

The research team hopes that this discovery will help experts target future therapy or help identify those at high risk and the study highlights that even minor variations in the levels of CTLA-4 can have significant autoimmune consequences.

JDRF Chief Scientific Officer, Robert Goldstein, said:


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.