Consistent with the relatively low levels of autoimmune T cell activation (54) and the highly antigen-specific nature of T1D, any differences in lymphocytes subsets were more modest than seen in previous reports in RA (28, 29), where an increase in CD8+ memory and antigen-experienced T cells in lymphoid tissue was seen along with an increased frequency of non-circulating or recently activated (CD69+) CD8+CD45RA+ T cells and an increased frequency of (CD69+) CD8+CD45RO+ T cells in blood. This evidence concerns the gene CD8A and type 1 diabetes mellitus.