Passive transfer of diabetes mellitus from man to mouse.

Lymphocytes extracted from peripheral-blood samples from each of six patients with newly diagnosed insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus were transplanted into arthymic nude mice. At one or more sampling times (in the thirty-day study) blood sugar was higher in mice which had received lymphocytes from diabetic patients than in the control mice which had received lymphocytes from non-diabetic donors. Blood-sugar concentrations reached 260 mg/dl in some mice in the experimental group. This study demonstrates that lymphocytes may have an aggressive role in diabetogenesis. With this mouse experimental model mechanisms involved in diabetogenesis, and probably also in other disease in which lymphocytes are suspected of being involved in pathogenesis, could be investigated.