Single cell RNA-sequencing analysis of islets from WT NOD mice on different diets

Protein source in diet greatly influences the incidence of type-1 diabetes (T1D) in non-obese diabetic (NOD) mouse colonies. NOD mice fed a diet containing hydrolyzed casein (HC) as the sole protein source are protected from T1D. Replacing 1/5th of the HC with gluten restores high T1D to NOD mice. We hypothesized that gluten might promote inflammation in the islets. We used single cell RNA sequencing (scRNAseq) to characterize and contrast the transcriptional profiles of endocrine cells and islet infiltrating leukocytes from the pancreatic islets of Langerhans of NOD mice fed a 20% HC diet or a 16% HC + 4% gluten diet. Overall design: scRNAseq was performed on single cell suspensions from isolated pancreatic islets of Langerhans from 15 week old NOD/ShiLtJ mice fed either 20% HC or 16% HC + 4% gluten diets. Islets from 3 mice per diet were pooled for each sample.