• Monoclonal Antibody Therapy For Type 1 Diabetes
  • Tina Kabipour,1,* Amir Gholamzad,2 Mahdi Nakhaee,3 Soheil Salmani Bafroe,4 Melika Kavianfar,5 Mehrdad Gholamzad,6
    1. Department of Laboratory Medicine, Faculty of Paramedical Sciences, Tehran Medical Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
    2. Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Tehran Medical Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
    3. Department of Laboratory Medicine, Faculty of Paramedical Sciences, Tehran Medical Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
    4. Faculty of Medicine, Tehran Medical Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
    5. Faculty of Medicine, Tehran Medical Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
    6. Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Tehran Medical Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran


  • Introduction: Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is an autoimmune disease defined by the immune-mediated destruction and/or dysfunction of the insulin producing β cells within the pancreatic islets of Langerhans. Both genetic and ill-defined environmental factors (e.g. viral infection, diet) influence T1D susceptibility . Typically, it takes a number of years from the initiation of autoimmunity to diagnosis of clinical diabetes . When the functional β cell mass is reduced by ~80%, production of insulin becomes insufficient to regulate the body’s glucose levels. Currently there is no established curative treatment, and T1D is managed via daily exogenous insulin treatment and monitoring of blood glucose levels.
  • Methods: We discussed current and potential future therapeutic mAb treatment strategies for T1D, and T cell-mediated autoimmunity.
  • Results: Results suggest short course mAb therapies may have persistent effects for regaining and maintaining self-tolerance. Furthermore, the flexibility to manipulate mAb properties permits the development of novel strategies to target multiple antigens and/or deliver therapeutic drugs by a single mAb molecule.
  • Conclusion: The utilization of monoclonal antibodies (mAb) is one strategy to target specific immune cell populations inducing autoimmune-driven pathology. Several mAb have proven to be clinically safe and exhibit varying degrees of efficacy in modulating autoimmunity, including T1D. Traditionally, mAb therapies have been used to deplete a targeted cell population regardless of antigenic specificity. However, this treatment strategy can prove detrimental resulting in the loss of acquired protective immunity. Nondepleting mAb have also been applied to modulate the function of immune effector cells.
  • Keywords: Diabetes, immunotherapy, monoclonal antibodies, immunoregulation, self-tolerance