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Is Essential for Destruction of 
Cells and
Development of Insulin-dependent Diabetes Mellitus
By
From The Scripps Research Institute, Division of Virology, Department of Neuropharmacology, La
Jolla, California 92037
Autoimmune mediated destruction of 
cells of the islets of Langerhans leads to insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM). Rat insulin promoter (RIP) lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) transgenic mice that express the nucleoprotein (NP) or glycoprotein (GP) of
LCMV under control of the RIP in their cells develop IDDM after infection with LCMV
and serve as a model for virus-induced IDDM. Recently, Kagi et al. (Kagi, D., B. Odermatt, P. Ohashi, R.M. Zinkernagel, and H. Hengartner. 1996. J. Exp. Med. 183:2143-2149) showed,
using RIP LCMV perforin-deficient mice, that IDDM does not occur in the absence of perforin. They concluded that perforin-mediated killing by cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) is
the main factor needed for cell injury and destruction. Here we provide evidence that killing
of cells is more complex and multifactorial. By the use of our RIP LCMV model, we show that in perforin competent but interferon-
(IFN-)-deficient mice, cell injury is limited and
IDDM does not occur. For these studies, double transgenic mice were generated that were genetically deficient in the production of IFN- and express LCMV NP or GP in their cells. In
such mice, IDDM was aborted despite the generation of LCMV-specific antiself CTLs that displayed normal cytolytic activity in vitro and in vivo and entered the pancreas. However, mononuclear infiltration into the islets did not occur, and upregulation of class I and II molecules usually found in islets of RIP LCMV single transgenic mice after LCMV infection preceding the onset of clinical IDDM was not present in these bigenic mice. Our findings indicate
that in addition to perforin, cell destruction, development of insulitis, and IDDM also depend on the cytokine INF-, presumably through enhancement of major histocompatibility
complex expression and antigen presentation.
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