Evidence for complement-dependent and -independent inhibition of insulin secretion from clonal beta-cells incubated in the presence of sera of newly diagnosed IDDM patients

There are conflicting reports on the effect of serum from patients with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) or normal human serum on beta-cell function and insulin secretion. Here, we report that the sera of newly diagnosed IDDM patients potently suppresses insulin secretion from a clonal rat pancreatic beta-cell line (BRIN-BD11), but do not alter cell viability. Indeed, the viability of the beta-cells was not significantly different between cells cultured in 10% (v/v) IDDM sera, normal human sera, or fetal calf serum after 24, 48 and 72 h. Alanine-stimulated insulin secretion from cells cultured for 24 h in (10% v/v) IDDM patient sera was reduced to 48% of that secreted from cells cultured in (10% v/v) normal human sera. After depletion of the complement components C1q and C3, the inhibition of insulin secretion induced by IDDM patient sera was significantly reversed (no significant difference was observed between cells cultured in complement-depleted IDDM patient sera and cells cultured in normal human sera or complement-depleted normal human sera). The concentration of glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) autoantibodies was markedly increased in the sera of six out of nine newly diagnosed IDDM patients in this study, whereas insulin auto-antibodies (IAA) were detected in the sera of three of the nine patients and islet-cell antibodies (ICA) in the sera of five of them. In addition, the concentration of soluble terminal complement complexes (SC5-9) was greater in some of the beta-cell culture media samples after 24 h incubation when the incubation medium was supplemented with IDDM patient sera than when supplementation was with normal human sera. We propose that the mechanism of sera-induced inhibition of insulin secretion from clonal beta-cells may involve complement- and cytokine-stimulated intracellular events that attenuate the metabolite-induced secretory process.