Our study reveals that IL-27 contributes to autoimmunity in NOD mice through multiple mechanisms and provides substantial evidence to support its pathogenic role in human T1D.
Most remarkably, we identify a common missense variant in IL27, associated with type 1 diabetes that results in decreased functional activity of the protein and reduced expression levels of downstream IRF1 and STAT1 in CD4+ T cells only.
The microarray data provided evidence that viral infection, and IL-27 and IL-9 cytokine signalling contributed to the onset of T1D in two of the quadruplets.