As shown in Fig. 5(a), responses to each of these epitopes

Cilomilast were observed in healthy donors, subjects with T1D, or both at frequencies ranging from two to nine out of the 10 subjects tested. For the limited number of subjects tested, responses to GAD433–452 were observed only in healthy donors. Responses to GAD553–572 were seen more often in healthy subjects than in subjects with T1D. Responses to GAD273–292, GAD265–284 and GAD113–132 were seen more often in subjects with T1D than in healthy controls. None of these differences were statistically significant. We next compared T-cell responses in healthy donors and subjects with T1D (using an analysis of variance with Bonferroni post-test) to look for differences in the magnitude of the tetramer-positive population for each GAD epitope. As shown in Fig. 5(b), responses to GAD113–132 and GAD265–284 had a significantly stronger magnitude (P < 0·05) for subjects with T1D than for healthy donors. For all other epitopes, responses had similar magnitudes in

healthy donors and subjects with T1D. The most commonly observed specificities for our repertoire analysis (using CD25-depleted cultures) were GAD433–452 and GAD553–572. However, the most commonly observed selleck inhibitor responses (using non-depleted cultures) were GAD113–132 and GAD273–292. This difference suggested that CD25 depletion may influence the expansion of GAD-specific T cells either through removal of regulatory T (Treg) cells or activated T cells. Table 3 summarizes and compares GAD65-specific

responses observed with and without CD25 depletion. Based on Fisher’s exact test, responses to the six epitopes tested had a similar prevalence in the CD25-depleted and non-depleted cultures, with the exception of GAD113–132, for which responses were significantly more frequent in the non-depleted cultures (P = 0·003). In this study, we systematically investigated HLA-DR0401-restricted epitopes within GAD65, examining responses to this protein in healthy and diabetic subjects. Our first objective was to BCKDHA characterize the diversity of epitopes that can be visualized using tetramers. We first identified 17 antigenic peptides containing at least 15 unique GAD65 epitopes (Table 1 and Fig. 2). Of these 15 sequences, 12 were confirmed to be processed and presented, based on positive proliferation (Fig. 3) or tetramer staining after GAD65 protein stimulation (Fig. 4). The remaining sequences appear to be cryptic epitopes. Several epitopes were consistent with GAD65 epitopes identified using the HLA-DR0401 transgenic mouse system (underlined in Table 1), indicating that the epitopes identified by tetramer-guided epitope mapping are well correlated with previously identified epitopes.[21] In addition, five of the epitopes were completely novel, expanding the available tools to interrogate the GAD65-specific T-cell response.