CD4 and diabetes mellitus: We have shown that DCs maintained in a functionally immature state following in vitro treatment with NF-kappaB decoys and antisense oligodeoxyribonucleotides (AS-ODNs) to the CD40, CD80, and CD86 costimulatory molecules are diabetes preventive in the NOD mouse [6, 8, 206] and may involve short-range IL-7 signaling, quite likely inside the pancreatic lymph node of NOD mice, to augment the number of CD4+ CD25+ Treg via suppression of apoptosis of a preexisting pool [206].