“…There are indications that an autoimmune process is involved in the pathogenesis of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM), the major susceptibility alleles for the disease being located in the HLA-DR/DQ region (Owerbach et al, 1983;Cohen-Haguenauer et ai, 1985;Nerup, Mandrup-Poulsen & Molvig, 1987;Todd, Bell & McDevitt, 1987), The difference in concordance rate between HLA-identical siblings (16-25%) (Gorsuch et al, 1982;Tarn et al, 1988) versus monozygotic twins (30-50%) (Barnett et al, 1981;Olmos et al, 1988) nevertheless suggests that genes other than those for HLA may be involved in determining the risk of contracting the disease. Thus interest has been focused recently on the other genes coding for the key molecules in the immunological reactions.…”