A delayed-type hypersensitivity skin-test system using the insulinoma cell line RINm5F to monitor beta cell-specific cellular autoimmune reactivity in the spontaneously diabetic BB/O rat.

Islet-specific autoimmune reactivity (humoral and cell-mediated) is the basis for the insulitis process of type I diabetes mellitus. In this report a delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) skin test was used to monitor the presence of an islet-specific cell-mediated autoimmune component in BB/O rats. The BB/O rat is a strain characterized by the spontaneous development of type I diabetes. Intact RINm5F cells as well as a RINm5F cell membrane preparation were used as DTH skin test antigens. Rats of different ages and disease stages were tested in the ear with the insulinoma cell line and its cell membrane preparation. As control antigens, the fibroblast cell line 3Y1 and a cell membrane preparation made thereof were used. The DTH reaction system showed a positive cell-mediated reactivity in BB/O rats for membrane-bound RINm5F cell antigens, and not for the control fibroblast 3Y1 cell membrane determinants. The true DTH character of the skin test was established by the time-course of the reaction (maximum at 24 h), the histopathology (infiltration by dendritic cells, lymphocytes and macrophages), and the possibility to transfer the reaction with spleen cells and lymph node cells. The DTH test towards RINm5F cells showed the highest prevalence of positivity (100%) in BB/O rats around the onset of diabetes (3 weeks before to 3 weeks after the onset of glucosuria). The prevalence of DTH positivity was 56% in the period of more than 3 weeks before the onset of glucosuria. In BB/O rats with a duration of glucosuria of more than 3 weeks, the prevalence of positivity was around 60-70%.