Beta-cell gene expression and functional characterisation of the human insulinoma cell line CM.

Animal insulinoma cell lines are widely used to study physiological and pathophysiological mechanisms involved in glucose metabolism and to establish in vitro models for studies on beta-cells. In contrast, human insulinoma cell lines are rarely used because of difficulties in obtaining and culturing them for long periods. The aim of our study was to investigate, under different experimental conditions, the capacity of the human insulinoma cell line CM to retain beta-cell function, particularly the expression of constitutive beta-cell genes (insulin, the glucose transporters GLUT1 and GLUT2, glucokinase), intracellular and secreted insulin, beta-cell granules, and cAMP content.

Immune reactivity of diabetes-associated human monoclonal autoantibodies defines multiple epitopes and detects two domain boundaries in glutamate decarboxylase.

Autoreactive islet cell Abs (ICA) accompany the pathogenic destruction of pancreatic beta cells in insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM). Human monoclonal ICA (MICA 1-6), previously derived from a DR1/DR7-positive newly diagnosed diabetic patient, recognized the islet cell autoantigen glutamate decarboxylase 65 (GAD65) and defined two distinct conformational (MICA 1/3 and MICA 4/6) and one linear (MICA 2) autoimmune epitopes in this molecule. We have isolated 4 new ICA-reactive B cell lines, one from a DR4/DR11-positive newly diagnosed IDDM patient (MICA 7) and three from a DR3 homozygous patient with both IDDM and Graves' disease (MICA 8-10).