Study Finds Early T1D CD4 T-Cell Signature in Pancreatic Lymph Nodes

Overview

• Researchers profiled nearly one million immune cells from pancreatic lymph nodes and spleens of 43 organ donors spanning active T1D, pre-T1D, and healthy states.
• A distinct subset of memory CD4 helper T cells in pancreatic lymph nodes showed elevated NFKB1 and BACH2 expression with coordinated chromatin remodeling.
• Similar T-cell signatures appeared in donors with islet autoantibodies but no diagnosis, indicating these immune changes emerge before clinical disease.
• Public blood datasets reflected genes from T1D-specific spleen B and T cell clusters, supporting the feasibility of blood-based biomarkers that require prospective validation.
• The work, part of NIH’s HPAP with data available via PANC-DB, includes plans to train AI models to detect faint tissue-derived signals in blood.