Abstract
To establish the prevalence of proinsulin-specific antibodies in diabetic patients, thirty serum samples were analyzed. Among the insulin-treated group, proinsulin antibodies were demonstrated in 20 cases (80%) by the significant binding of 125I-bovine proinsulin to the sera pretreated with excess of insulin and reduced binding when these sera were preincubated with unlabelled bovine proinsulin. Five other sera (20%) bound tracer proinsulin, but did not bind significantly after preincubation with insulin indicating that only cross-reacting insulin antibodies were present and there were no detectable proinsulin antibodies. Sera from five diet-controlled patients had no antibodies.

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