What is Auto-Immune Response, in terms of diabetes and genetically engineered insulin?
I am doing a project on Diabetes and what is Auto-Immune response? and what does it have to do with genetically engineered insulin? Is it the body rejecting this created insulin? If it is why is this? Thanks in advance!
an auto immune response is where the bodies immune system incorrectly reconginses cells from the body as “non-self” and attacks them, this is particularly important in Type I diebeties (ie childhood diabeties) because the cells of the immune system attack and destroy the Beta secretory cells of the pancreas, these cells are responsible for insulin secretion thus when they are destoryed we cant secrete insulin to control our blood glucose levels.
Every cell has a special combination of sugars and proteins on its exterior called the major histo-compatibility complex , this complex is what identifies cells as “friendly” and tells the immune system not to attack it. When we supply insulin to diabetics (both type I and II) we need to ensure that the immune system recognizes it as friendly otherwise the immune system will attack it and degrade it.