Abstract
Fifty-seven Japanese diabetics were HLA typed with special reference to age at onset, insulindependency, and family history.
HLA-BW 22 was significantly more frequent in patients with juvenile onset, insulindependency, and/or with family history of diabetes mellitus than in controls. No difference, however, was found in the incidence of the phenotypes of HLA between controls and the patients with adult onset, insulin-independency or with negative family history. Thus, the inherited susceptibility to insulin-dependent diabetes seems to be associated with HLA-BW 22 in the Japanese, This finding might be another supportive evidence for the concept proposed by Nerup et al., that insulin dependent diabetes is a disease entity in itself and different from insulin-independent diabetes in etiology and pathogenesis. Our results showing the increase in BW 22, however, were different from those reported by Nerup et al. or Cudworth & Woodrow, who found a definite association of insulin-dependency or juvenile onset with HLA-B 8 and/or BW 15 in Caucasias. This difference seems to be an expression of race specificity in HLA phenotypes.
The interrelations among HLA, cellular immunity in diabetes mellitus, and virus infection as a possible cause of diabetes mellitus were also briefly discussed.
