circulating immune complexes among diabetic children循环免疫复合物在糖尿病的孩子.pdfVIP

Clinical Developmental Immunology, March 2004, Vol. 11 (1), pp. 61–66 Circulating Immune Complexes among Diabetic Children a, a b c GEORGE NICOLOFF *, ALEXANDER BLAZHEV , CHAIKA PETROVA and PETKANA CHRISTOVA aDepartment of Biology and Pathological Physiology, University School of Medicine, Pleven, Bulgaria; bDepartment of Pediatric, University School of Medicine, Pleven, Bulgaria; cDepartment of Social Medicine, University School of Medicine, Pleven, Bulgaria Insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) is an autoimmune disease associated with the presence of different types of autoantibodies. The presence of these antibodies and the corresponding antigens in the circulation leads to the formation of circulating immune complexes (CIC). CIC are known to persist in the blood for long periods of time. Such CIC following deposition in the small blood vessels have the potential to lead to microangiopathy with debilitating clinical consequences. The aim of our pilot study was to investigate whether a correlation exists between CIC and the development of microvascular complications in diabetic children. Isolation of a new glycoprotein complement inhibition factor (CIF) from the parasitic plant Cuscuta europea seed, which appears to bind specifically to complement component C3 has provided an unique tool for the measurement of immune complexes by means of ELISA-type techniques (CIF-ELISA). We studied the levels of CIC (IgG, IgM and IgA) in 58 diabetic children (mean age 12:28 ^4:04 years, diabetes duration 5:3 ^3:7 years), 29 of them had vascular