UF study identifies immune cells that may help sustain Type 1 diabetes attack

UF Health reports that University of Florida researchers have identified a population of stem-like immune T cells that may help keep the autoimmune attack in Type 1 diabetes going for years. The study, published in the *Journal of Clinical Investigation*, was led by Leeana Peters, Ph.

D., a postdoctoral fellow in Todd Brusko’s lab. Brusko, director of the UF Diabetes Institute and senior author of the paper, said the work describes a proliferative stem-like T cell population in human pancreas-draining lymph nodes, a finding that may help explain why Type 1 diabetes can remain a chronic autoimmune process rather than fading after an initial immune response.

The researchers analyzed pancreatic tissue and nearby lymph nodes from people with and without Type 1 diabetes using advanced single-cell gene sequencing. That approach allowed them to examine which genes were active in individual immune cells and identify surface markers that distinguish different cell populations. The central finding is that these stem-like T cells may renew themselves and replenish the immune cells that attack insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas.

The work matters because Type 1 diabetes research has historically relied heavily on blood samples, while the disease process itself occurs in difficult-to-access pancreatic tissue and related lymph nodes. UF’s Network for Pancreatic Organ Donors with Diabetes, or nPOD, made this analysis possible by providing donor tissue samples. The study gives researchers a more direct view of the autoimmune environment and may point toward drug targets, including therapeutic antibodies aimed at interrupting the disease process before or during beta-cell destruction.