Type I Diabetes may be caused by viral infection

Yesterday, researchers at the Center for Infection and Immunity and the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, found new evidence supporting the fact that Type I Diabetes may be linked with viral infection.

The study was performed using blood and fecal samples of 93 children and used a new technology called the VirCapSeq-VERT viral sequencing tool. This tool operates through reference of a library of sequences selected from genetic pieces representing all viral taxa that infect vertebrates. These form a probe that is mixed with an unknown sample. Only genetic segments from the sample that match those contained in the probe are extracted with magnetic beads and analyzed through high throughput sequencing. This tool is significantly more powerful at identifying viruses than traditional sequencing methods and has already been used to identify unknown diseases in Uganda and Tanzania and to detect Chikungunya in Brazil.

From the fecal samples, researchers found 5 enterovirus-A species that were significantly more abundant in children with islet autoimmunity than with age and gender matched controls. Though no similar association was found in the blood samples, researchers say this is not surprising, as the body clears viral infections from the bloodstream more quickly than from the gut.

This finding provides new evidence for the hypothesis that enteroviral infections can spread from the bloodstream to the pancreas and trigger an immune response towards the islet cells, leading to Type I diabetes.

The full story can be found here

Ki Wook Kim, Jessica L. Horton, Chi Nam Ignatius Pang, Komal Jain, Preston Leung, Sonia R. Isaacs, Rowena A. Bull, Fabio Luciani, Marc R. Wilkins, Jacki Catteau, W. Ian Lipkin, William D. Rawlinson, Thomas Briese, Maria E. Craig. Higher abundance of enterovirus A species in the gut of children with islet autoimmunity. Scientific Reports, 2019; 9 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-38368-8

~Angela Wang, Feb. 21, 2019