Islet autoantibody level distributions in type 1 diabetes and their association with genetic and clinical characteristics
Positivity for islet autoantibodies is used for diagnosis of type 1 diabetes. However, the importance of the autoantibody level at diagnosis of type 1 diabetes is not clear. Here, we assessed the association of glutamate decarboxylase (GADA), islet antigen-2 (IA-2A) and zinc transporter 8 (ZnT8A) autoantibody levels, measured using radiobinding assays, on genetic and clinical characteristics at diagnosis of 1536 participants with diabetes who were positive for these autoantibodies. We show that GADA and IA-2A levels had bimodal distributions, but ZnT8A level did not. The comparison of genetic and clinical characteristics between high and low level categories showed high GADA level was associated with older age at diagnosis, female sex and HLA-DR3-DQ2, whereas high IA-2A level was associated with younger age of diagnosis, ZnT8A positivity and HLA-DR4-DQ8. We replicated our findings in an independent cohort of 427 people with type 1 diabetes where autoantibodies were measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. In conclusion, Islet autoantibody levels provide additional information over positivity in type 1 diabetes at diagnosis. The bimodality of islet autoantibody levels highlights the novel aspect of heterogeneity of type 1 diabetes which may have implications on prediction, treatment and prognosis.