AUTHOR=Bertini Edoardo , Merlin Matilde , Gecchele Elisa , Puggia Andrea , Brozzetti Annalisa , Commisso Mauro , Falorni Alberto , Bini Vittorio , Klymyuk Victor , Pezzotti Mario , Avesani Linda TITLE=Design of a Type-1 Diabetes Vaccine Candidate Using Edible Plants Expressing a Major Autoantigen JOURNAL=Frontiers in Plant Science VOLUME=9 YEAR=2018 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/10.3389/fpls.2018.00572 DOI=10.3389/fpls.2018.00572 ISSN=1664-462X ABSTRACT=
Type-1 diabetes (T1D) is a metabolic disease involving the autoimmune destruction of insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells. It is often diagnosed by the detection of autoantibodies, typically those recognizing insulin itself or the 65-kDa isoform of glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD65). Oral insulin can be used to induce systemic immunological tolerance and thus prevent or delay the onset of T1D, suggesting that combination treatments with other autoantigens such as GAD65 could be even more successful. GAD65 has induced oral tolerance and prevented T1D in preclinical studies but it is difficult to produce in sufficient quantities for clinical testing. Here we combined edible plant systems, namely spinach (