GAD65 Antibody Epitope Patterns of Type 1.5 Diabetic Patients Are Consistent With Slow-Onset Autoimmune Diabetes
- Christiane S. Hampe, PHD1,
- Ingrid Kockum, PHD3,
- Mona Landin-Olsson, MD4,
- Carina Törn, PHD4,
- Eva Örtqvist, MD, PHD5,
- Bengt Persson, MD5,
- Olov Rolandsson, MD6,
- Jerry Palmer, MD2 and
- Åke Lernmark, PHD1
- 1Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
- 2Department of Medicine, Department of Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
- 3Department of Molecular Medicine, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
- 4Department of Medicine, University Hospital, Lund, Sweden
- 5Department of Women and Child Health, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
- 6Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden
Type 1.5 diabetes (1) is characterized by rapid loss of β-cell function, failure of oral agents, and acquirement of insulin requirement (2,3). These patients have islet cell antibodies (ICAs), GAD65 autoantibodies (GAD65Abs) (4,5,6), or both, indicating an underlying autoimmune pathogenesis. Therefore, the question of whether type 1.5 diabetes represents a separate clinical disease or a slowly progressive form of type 1 diabetes has been raised (7,8). The aim of the present study was to investigate whether GAD65Ab epitopes in type 1.5 diabetic patients differ from those found in type 1 diabetic patients and other GAD65Ab-positive phenotypes.
Type 1.5 diabetic patients (n = 34) were identified as GAD65Ab-positive type 2 diabetic …
