1. BCG Vaccination-Associated Lower HbA1c and Increased CD25 Expression on CD8+ T Cells in Patients with Type 1 Diabetes in Ghana
- Author
-
Wilfred Aniagyei, Sumaya Mohayideen, Osei Sarfo-Kantanka, Sarah Bittner, Monika M. Vivekanandan, Joseph F. Arthur, Agnes O. Boateng, Augustine Yeboah, Hubert S. Ahor, Shadrack O. Asibey, Elizabeth Owusu, Diran Herebian, Maximilian Huttasch, Volker Burkart, Robert Wagner, Michael Roden, Ernest Adankwah, Dorcas O. Owusu, Ertan Mayatepek, Marc Jacobsen, Richard O. Phillips, and Julia Seyfarth
- Subjects
type 1 diabetes ,BCG vaccination ,immunomodulation ,T cells ,glycolysis ,Medicine - Abstract
BCG vaccination affects other diseases beyond tuberculosis by unknown—potentially immunomodulatory—mechanisms. Recent studies have shown that BCG vaccination administered during overt type 1 diabetes (T1D) improved glycemic control and affected immune and metabolic parameters. Here, we comprehensively characterized Ghanaian T1D patients with or without routine neonatal BCG vaccination to identify vaccine-associated alterations. Ghanaian long-term T1D patients (n = 108) and matched healthy controls (n = 214) were evaluated for disease-related clinical, metabolic, and immunophenotypic parameters and compared based on their neonatal BCG vaccination status. The majority of study participants were BCG-vaccinated at birth and no differences in vaccination rates were detected between the study groups. Notably, glycemic control metrics, i.e., HbA1c and IDAA1c, showed significantly lower levels in BCG-vaccinated as compared to unvaccinated patients. Immunophenotype comparisons identified higher expression of the T cell activation marker CD25 on CD8+ T cells from BCG-vaccinated T1D patients. Correlation analysis identified a negative correlation between HbA1c levels and CD25 expression on CD8+ T cells. In addition, we observed fractional increases in glycolysis metabolites (phosphoenolpyruvate and 2/3-phosphoglycerate) in BCG-vaccinated T1D patients. These results suggest that neonatal BCG vaccination is associated with better glycemic control and increased activation of CD8+ T cells in T1D patients.
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF