News & Blog
Anti GAD ELISA in Diabetes Research
Friday 4th November 2016
Glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) is an auto antigen which is thought to be one of the main factors involved in triggering specific autoimmune reactions towards pancreatic beta cells, the cells which produce Insulin within the pancreas. Around 80% of patients with recent onset type I diabetes mellitus have anti GAD antibodies within the serum, and it can also be found in those patients defined as 'pre diabetic'. [Jun et al. 2002, Sørgjerd et al. 2015].
Although Anti GAD can be found in individuals who are not diabetic and have no signs of being likely to develop diabetes, a study in 2015 [Sørgjerd et al.] looked at the presence of anti GAD in patients who are 'persistently non diabetic' and found that in a cohort of just under 4500 participants, only 1.7% were positive for anti GAD.
The GAD65 autoantibody (GADAb) ELISA kit, available in the UK from JRBiomedical, is intended for laboratory use only, for the quantitative determination of GAD autoantibodies in human serum. The antigens recognised by these antibodies include insulin, glutamic acid de- carboxylase (GAD65 kDa isoform) and the islet cell antigen IA-2 or ICA-512.
In summary, analysis of the levels of autoantibodies involved in beta cell autoimmune reactions can be useful in detecting patients with autoimmune diabetes, and so long as the quality of the assays used are to a high enough standard, they may have a role in identifying individuals who are highly likely to develop the disease. [Bingley 2009]
References
Bingley, P.B. 2009. Clinical Applications of Diabetes Antibody Testing. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism [Online] 95. Available at http://press.endocrine.org/doi/10.1210/jc. 2009-1365?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%3Dpubmed& [Accessed: 5th July 2016]
Jun, H.S. et al. 2002. Role of glutamic acid decarboxylase in the pathogenesis of type 1 diabetes. Cellular and Molecular life sciences [Online]59. Available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ 12530520 [Accessed: 5th July 2016]
Sørgjerd, E.P. et al. 2015. Presence of anti-GAD in a non-diabetic population of adults; time dynamics and clinical influence: results from the HUNT study. BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care [Online] 3. Available at http://drc.bmj.com/content/3/1/e000076.full [Accessed 5th July 2016].