Gene Linked to Type 1 Diabetes Development
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
Researchers have identified a gene that is crucial in the development of Type 1 diabetes, a gene that is the blueprint for a protein called macrophage migration inhibitory factor, or MIF. The protein is unusually high in diabetic animals and apparently plays a role in the destruction of the pancreatic cells that produce insulin.
A team from the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in Manhasset, N.Y., told a San Diego meeting of the American Chemical Society that giving mice a drug that blocked the activity of MIF prevented the chemically induced development of diabetes.
They also found that mice bred without the MIF gene did not develop the disease.
