Overall, we observed an increased frequency of cells expressing IFN-α after stimulation of monocytes from both T1D (p = 0.0001) and HC subjects (p = 0.02) (Fig. 4e) and stimulation of pDCs from T1D subjects (p = 0.04) (Fig. 5e) in comparison to unstimulated controls. This evidence concerns the gene IFNA1 and type 1 diabetes mellitus.