Type 1 Diabetes Immunological Tolerance and Immunotherapy
1Laboratory of Immunoendocrinology, Institute of Pathology CHU-B23, University of Liege Center of Immunology (CIL), Sart Tilman, 4000 Liege, Belgium
2Department of Pathology and Immunology, Diabetes Institute, Rangos Research Center, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA
3Immunology Division, Department of Pediatric, University of Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada J1H 5N4
Type 1 Diabetes Immunological Tolerance and Immunotherapy
Description
Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is a chronic autoimmune disorder associated, in genetically susceptible individuals, with the generation and activation of autoreactive CD4+ and CD8+ T cells that infiltrate the pancreas and selectively destroy the insulin-producing β-cells in the islets. The impairment of T-cell tolerance in T1D has been reported at many levels including abnormal self-antigen presentation in the thymus and periphery, autoreactive T-cell resistance to apoptosis, unbalanced immunoregulatory T-cell function, and deregulation of Th1/Th2/Th17 axes. Despite the identification of type1 diabetes-associated autoantigens and their derived CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell epitopes, numerous antigen-specific immunoregulatory therapies have failed when evaluated for their utility in the prevention and treatment of T1D. In this special issue, we invite authors to submit original research and review articles highlighting the recent advances that have broadened our understanding of immunological tolerance and T1D vaccine strategies. Also, we welcome papers that seek to define immunoregulatory properties of T cells to provide new insights as to their potential for clinical use. We are interested in articles that explore salient aspects of T1D-associated tolerance and immunotherapy. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:
- T1D-associated central and peripheral tolerance mechanisms
- Elucidating the functional impairment in immunoregulatory T-cell function in T1D
- New animal models to test and understand dysfunctional immunity in T1D
- Identification of new beta islet-specific autoantigens
- Development of antigen-based immunotherapeutic strategies to prevent or treat T1D
- Clinical trials with novel antigen-specific immunoregulatory therapies
Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jir/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/ according to the following timetable: