Sharad Purohit and AU graduate student and co-author Katherine P. Richardson. Credit: Michael Holahan, Augusta University
Key Points:
- Antibodies produced against a common antibiotic appear to increase the risk of type 1 diabetes in children already at risk.
- In their study, the researchers saw an association between a gene that is involved in disease progression and the antibodies against gentamicin.
- The team will examine their findings in a larger study of about 9,000 children with one of more genes known to increase the risk for type 1 diabetes from birth to age 15.
Premature babies are at higher risk than gestationally mature babies for both sepsis and type 1 diabetes. The current standard of care for newborns with sepsis is gentamicin. But, a new study shows antibodies produced against gentamicin may be increasing the child’s risk of type 1 diabetes—if they are already at risk.
The scientists looked at antibodies against 202 glycans in the blood of 278 individuals with type 1 diabetes, compared with 298 healthy controls. They found that a higher level of antibodies against gentamicin was associated with increased risk of progression to type 1 diabetes. G418 and sisomicin—analogs of gentamicin—showed a similar association.
According to the study, published in Nature Communications, the researchers also found an association between the FUT2 gene and the antibodies against both gentamicin and the islet cells of the pancreas.
The FUT2 gene is involved in many of the key factors involved in the progression to type 1 diabetes. Its functions include the contents of glycans on the surface of cells in our body and what the glycans do; the risk of major infection, or sepsis, in newborns; type 1 diabetes and other autoimmune diseases; as well as controlling blood type.
“I think based on our data, they are compounding risks,” said study author Sharad Purohit, a biochemist in the Medical College of Georgia Center for Biotechnology and Genomic Medicine.
The researchers also noted varying levels of antibodies against several classes of glycans, which may have an indirect role in the control of the immune response. Specific antibodies to glycans in the blood already have been associated with cancer and other autoimmune diseases. Those associations have generated interest in pursuing the potential of glycan antibodies as biomarkers to help diagnose and potentially act as targets to help treat some of these conditions.
The new study indicates the anti-carbohydrate antibodies (ACAs) may have a similar potential in type 1 diabetes, say the study authors.
“ACA profiling can help identify environmental exposures associated with disease and are potentially useful biomarkers for disease prediction,” says first author Paul Tran, MD.
The researchers plan to pursue the emerging relationships in a larger population of children and other young people known to be at risk for type 1 diabetes enrolled in TEDDY—The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young study.