Editorial Circulating Immune Complexes in Diabetes

Over the last few years more sensitive, reproducible and in some instances more specific techniques for the detection of circulating immune complexes (AgAb) have been developed [1-4]. Using these newer techniques immunological aspects of various diseases have been reappraised, and the presence of AgAb in diabetes has also been investigated. The interest in immune phenomena in diabetes has been increasing progressively. In the 1960s several studies, originating from the immunological implications of heterologous insulin administration, suggested that immune mechanisms could be of importance in the aetiology of diabetic microangiopathy. Morphological similarities with other immunological disorders were described [5-7], immune components were found in microangiopathic vessels [8-11], and diabetic- like lesions were experimentally induced by immune mechanisms especially in the renal glomeruli [12-14]. In the 1970s works by different authors provided