Increased Prevalence of Enteroviral RNA in Blood Spots From Newborn Children Who Later Developed Type 1 Diabetes
A population-based case-control study
- Gisela G. Dahlquist, MD, PHD1,
- Jenny Forsberg, MS1,
- Lars Hagenfeldt, MD, PHD2†,
- Jens Boman, MD3 and
- Per Juto, MD, PHD3
- 1Department of Clinical Sciences-Paediatrics, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden
- 2Centre of Inherited Metabolic Diseases, Huddinge University Hospital, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
- 3Department of Virology, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden
- Address correspondence to Professor Gisela Dahlquist, Umeå University, Department of Clinical Sciences-Paediatrics, SE-901 87 Umeå, Sweden. E-mail: gisela.dahlquist{at}pediatri.umu.se
Virus infections during fetal life may lead to persistent infections due to unresponsiveness of the immature immune system and by different mechanisms inducing autoimmunity in the β-cell (1). In a previous study, we found group-reacting antibodies to enterovirus more frequently increased in serum at delivery in a cohort of mothers whose children later developed diabetes than in control subjects (2). It has been argued that mothers of later diabetic children might have increased immune responses to certain viruses (3). Therefore, detection of the virus nucleic acid would be important …
