National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases 5R01DK133443-04

Tuning peptide specifities for T cell tolerance in Type 1 diabetes

The project focuses on understanding how modifications in insulin peptide presentation influence T cell selection and tolerance in Type 1 diabetes, aiming to identify targets for immune modulation and therapy.

Description

This project aims to understand how alterations in insulin peptide presentation can promote changes in T cell selection that lead to increased autoimmunity and diabetes pathogenesis. Improved knowledge of how changes in peptide epitopes affect the generation of pathogenic effector T cells versus selection of suppressive T regulatory cells will have broader application to a more mechanistic understanding of T cell selection in the thymus as well as for mechanisms of peripheral tolerance. Finally, results of our work will determine if manipulation of insulin peptide epitopes can provide a potential target for future efforts in tolerance induction and therapeutic intervention in Type 1 diabetes.

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