Protecting human pancreatic beta cells from autoimmune destruction

 In type 1 diabetes, insulin signal peptide fragments are targeted by autoreactive T cells to destroy beta cells.

The researchers in this study developed human beta-cell lines lacking endogenous insulin and complemented them with insulin-carrying signal peptides from different hormones including chromogranin-A.

They show that the replacement of the native insulin signal peptide with that of chromogranin-A allows human beta cells to evade autoimmune CD8+ T cell destruction while still enabling the production and secretion of functional insulin.

https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(26)01019-3

https://sciencemission.com/ngineering-the-insulin-signal-peptide