Killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptor genes in Latvian patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus and healthy controls.

T1DM is very common in Sweden and is positively associated with HLA class II genes. Approximately 89% of the newly diagnosed patients carry the high-risk HLA DR4-DQ8 and DR3-DQ2. The remaining 11% develop T1DM without them. This can be due to involvement of other genes and environmental factors. Natural killer (NK) cells of the innate immune system are important in antiviral and antitumor immunity. They are implicated in the etiology of autoimmune T1DM. Human NK cells express killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIR) that belong to the polymorphic multigene family in chromosome 19q3.4. They modulate NK cell response by interacting with HLA class I. In addition, polymorphic MICA in HLA…