Cellular hypersensitivity to mitochondrial antigens in diabetes mellitus and its relationship to the presence of circulating autoantibodies.

Leucocyte migration tests with rat liver mitochondria have been performed in eighteen patients with juvenile diabetes mellitus and in fifteen healthy controls. Leucocytes from normal subjects showed no inhibition of leucocyte migration, whereas inhibition occurred in twelve out of eighteen diabetics. The active component appeared to be in the inner membranes of the mitochondria in seventeen patients, whilst leucocytes from one patient showed inhibition to outer membrane fragments. Leucocyte migrations tests were performed in a further thirty-five patients, again using rat liver mitochondria as antigen, and sera from these patients was investigated for the presence of tissue autoantibodies. In those patients having a positive leucocyte migration test there was a higher incidence of circulating antibodies than in the group where white cells showed no inhibition but this did not reach statistical significance.