Insulitis was defined by a recent guideline which stipulates that the total number of leucocytes in close contact with the islet boundary (peri-insulitis) and within the intra-islet areas is equal to or greater than 15 [29].

Peri- and intra-islet CD45 cells were enumerated manually in all sections. For the diabetic group, observers were blinded to the case details, including autoantibody status. Islets with approximately ≥20 endocrine cells were analysed. Single glucagon and insulin cells scattered within the exocrine region were not enumerated, while sections from diabetic cases containing small islets (20 cells) but harbouring at least one insulin cell were recorded. The total numbers of insulin-positive and -negative islets in the pancreatic head, body and tail were also recorded in each section.

Sections (5 μm) were de-paraffinised, rehydrated and subjected to antigen retrieval with citrate buffer containing 0.05% Tween-20 (Sigma-Aldrich, St Louis, MO, USA). During immunohistochemistry, PBS, pH 7.4, was employed as a wash step. Sections were equilibrated in PBS and blocked with 5% normal goat serum (Sigma-Aldrich) for 1 h at 37°C. A mixture of guinea pig anti-insulin serum (A0564, dilution 1:600; Dako, Glostrup, Denmark) and rabbit anti-glucagon serum (A0565, dilution 1:200; Dako) in 5% normal goat serum (Sigma-Aldrich) was applied and incubated for 1 h at 37°C. Highly cross-adsorbed species-specific goat anti-guinea pig IgG-Alexa 568 (A11075; Invitrogen, Eugene, OR, USA) and goat anti-rabbit IgG-Alexa 488 (A11034, dilution 1:600 in 5% normal goat serum; Invitrogen) were then applied as a mixture and incubated as in the previous step. Sections were incubated with mouse anti-human CD45 (M0701; Dako; clones 2B11 + PD7/26, dilution 1:100 in PBS + 0.1% Tween-20) for 16 h at 4°C, washed and reacted with 3% H2O2 for 15 min. After washing, sections were incubated sequentially with donkey anti-mouse IgG-biotin (715-065-150; Jackson ImmunoResearch, West Grove, PA, USA, dilution 1:200 in PBS + 0.1% Tween-20) and streptavidin-horseradish peroxidase (016-030-084; Jackson ImmunoResearch, dilution 1:200 in PBS/0.1% Tween-20). They were finally exposed to a diaminobenzidine chromogenic mixture (Sigma-Aldrich) to visualise CD45 cells. Non-immune serum or IgG from the immunising species and omission of primary antibodies acted as negative controls.Sections were examined with a Nikon Eclipse E600 microscope under epifluorescence and bright field microscopy and digital images were recorded. All islets in a section with ≥20 endocrine cells were imaged for the presence of insulin, glucagon and CD45 cells and each of the three image sets from multiple acquisitions merged with Adobe Photoshop CS4 following conversion of CD45-positive cells to a greyscale fluorescence mode.