1978 Volume 54 Issue 8 Pages 909-920
A leucocyte migration inhibition test (LMIT) was carried out in 28 healthy controls and 39 diabetics with special reference to age at onset, insulin-dependency, family history and retinopathy. The method employed was the agarose plate method (Clausen). The antigens used were rat liver mitochondria prepared according to Zamecnik, bovine pancreas extract prepared according to Nerup et al., and rat islet mitochondria prepared according to Howell.
The following results were obtained :
1) There was no significant difference between controls and diabetics as a whole, when the tests were performed with rat liver mitochondria as an antigen. There was also no difference between juvenile onset diabetics and maturity onset diabetics, insulin-dependent diabetics and insulin-nondependent ones, patients with a family history and others without a family history, and the patients with retinopathy and those without retinopathy as far as this antigen was used.
2) There was a tendency toward a higher incidence of a positive LMIT in juvenile onset diabetics and patients with retinopathy as compared with maturity onset diabetics and those without retinopathy when the tests were carried out with bovine pancreas extract as an antigen. But none of them reached statistically significant levels.
3) Statistically higher (p<0.05) incidences of a positive reaction in LMIT were observed in juvenile onset diabetics and insulin-dependent patients as compared with maturity onset diabetics and insulin-nondependent patients when the patients were tested with rat islet mitochondria as an antigen.
Based on the above-mentioned results, the significance of autoimmune mechanism as a possible factor in the pathogenesis of juvenile and insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus was briefly discussed.
