Concurrent analysis of T-cell exhaustion in islet and tumour microenvironments in a novel tumour model in NOD mice

Our work is focused on understanding how the exhausted T cells in the tumour environment are different to those developing in the autoimmune islet environment. Understanding this will allow us to exploit processes that make T-cells causing T1D more exhausted like those in cancer and prevent T1D.

To do this we have developed a novel transplantable tumour cell line expressing islet antigen(s). We hypothesise that islet antigen-specific T cells infiltrating the tumour will undergo severe T cell exhaustion.  To examine how exhausted islet-specific T cells regulate the other effector T cells in NOD mice we will remove the tumour and follow the NOD mice to see if they are protected from diabetes.