Treatment with CD20-specific antibody prevents and reverses autoimmune diabetes in mice
J. Clin. Invest. Chang-yun Hu, et al. 117:3857 doi:10.1172/JCI32405 [Go to this article.]

Figure 5
Diabetes reversal following 2H7 treatment. Diabetic hCD20 mice were treated within 6 days of diagnosis with (A) 2H7 or (B) IgG as described in the legend for Figure 3, and their blood glucose was monitored daily. A subtherapeutic dose of insulin was administered, and this was discontinued when the blood glucose level was reduced to less than 250 mg/dl. Seven of the 14 mice treated with 2H7 are represented in A. Five of these mice recovered (3 of which remained euglycemic for more than 120 days and 1 of which was euglycemic for more than 150 days), and 2 mice remained diabetic. Five of the 10 mice treated with IgG are represented in B, none of which recovered from diabetes. The transient reduction in blood glucose seen in some mice was likely to be related to exogenous insulin treatment. The difference between 2H7- and IgG-treated mice was statistically significant (P = 0.03). (C) Three long-term anti-hCD20–treated euglycemic mice in A were challenged with glucose (1.5 mg/g body weight) i.p. Five newly NOD mice used as controls for dysfunctional islet β cells also had an ipGTT performed, and their blood glucose levels before fasting were all above 300 mg/dl. Five young NOD mice were used as controls for normal functional β cells, and their blood glucose levels before fasting were between 93 and 121 mg/dl.