The diabetic antigen glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD 65) in the human peripheral blood.

Background: Glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD 65) is a diabetes-associated antigen which is generally considered to be strictly intracellular. In order to better understand autoimmunity, this study demonstrates the appearance of GAD 65 in the peripheral human blood and presents implications for the diagnosis and therapy of some autoimmune diseases.

Methods: The GAD 65 molecules are detected by their interaction with monoclonal antibodies labeled with dyes in an experimental setup with fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS).