Authors: AK Berg O Korsgren G Frisk
Publish Date: 2006/09/13
Volume: 49, Issue: 11, Pages: 2697-2703
Abstract
Enterovirus infections have long been suspected to be environmental factors that may cause type 1 diabetes but the pathways leading from infection to beta cell destruction are still unknown We therefore examined whether enterovirus infection of human islets leads to upregulation of interferonγinducible protein IP10 now known as chemokine C–X–C motif ligand 10 CXCL10 a chemokine important for the induction of insulitisIP10 was clearly upregulated in and secreted from human islets during enterovirus infection This was demonstrated with three different strains of Coxsackie B4 virus two of which are lytic to islets and one which is nonlytic and can establish a persistent infection in human isletsWe propose that enterovirusinduced upregulation of IP10 during infection of the islets in vivo is the first step towards destructive insulitis Our findings support the idea that enterovirus infection triggers immunemediated beta cell destruction and for the first time suggest a possible mechanism behind enterovirusinduced diabetes
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