An analysis of the lymphocyte subpopulations by using monoclonal antibodies in Mon obese diabetic（NOD）mice

To test whether a lymphocyte subpopulation abnormality might he present at the onset of dia-betes in new animal model of type 1 diabetes （NOD） and would provide an early immunologicmarker of the disease,we examined the sequential changes in peripheral lymphocyte subsets of 9female NOD and 11 of age and sex matched IGR mice by monoclonal antibodies.The resultsshowed a significant increase in the proportion of Thy 1.2.⁺ （pan T） cells,Lyt 1⁺ （helper/induc-er） cell and Lyt 2⁺ （suppresor/cytotoxic） cells,but a significant decrease in Iak⁺ （B and activatedT） cells and slight reduction of ratio of Lyt 1⁺/Lyt 2⁺ cells at 5 time points.There was nt ten-dency of theso findinges to change with increasing age of the mice and the changes of the lymp-hocyte subsets were not related to hyperglycemia.From all of these results,no single abnormalityof lymphocyte subsets could be used as a predictor for the onset of diabetes and the alterations inthe proportion of T lymphocyte and their subsets could not account for the high incidence of dia-betes nor for a suspected prerequisite of T cell lymphopenia for the expression of the DM gene（s） in NOD mice.Futher study is necessary to investigate T-cell subset changes in NOD mice.