HLA-A2–Matched Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells From Type 1 Diabetic Patients, but Not Nondiabetic Donors, Transfer Insulitis to NOD-scid/gcnull/HLA-A2 Transgenic Mice Concurrent With the Expansion of

OBJECTIVE—Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease charac-terized by the destruction of insulin-producing b-cells. NOD mice provide a useful tool for understanding disease pathogenesis and progression. Although much has been learned from studies with NOD mice, increased understanding of human type 1 diabetes can be gained by evaluating the pathogenic potential of human diabe-togenic effector cells in vivo. Therefore, our objective in this study was to develop a small-animal model using human effector cells to study type 1 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—We adoptively trans-ferred HLA-A2–matched peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from type 1 diabetic patients and nondiabetic control subjects into transgenic NOD-scid/gcnull/HLA-A*0201 (NOD-scid/ gcnull/A2) mice. At various times after adoptive transfer, we de-termined the ability of these mice to support the survival an