Toll-like Receptors Regulate B cell Cytokine Production in Patients with Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes is increasingly appreciated as a disease that involves, and perhaps is initially driven by, inflammation. Cells from the immune system are critical mediators of chronic inflammation in this disease. Under the direction of Barbara Nikolajczyk, PhD, an associate professor of medicine and microbiology, researchers have identified fundamental changes in one cell type of the immune system, B cells. Specific B cell functions are critical for blocking other inflammatory diseases, such as colitis and multiple sclerosis. “Our data show that these anti-inflammatory B cell functions are defective in B cells from type 2 diabetes patients. Instead, B cells from these patients take on pro-inflammatory characteristics that we believe promote disease. The switch of B cells from anti-inflammatory to pro-inflammatory raises the possibility that killing B cells with FDA approved drugs may represent an important new treatment for type 2 diabetes.” These findings currently appear in the on-line in the journal Diabetologia.