INS and type 1 diabetes mellitus: Interestingly, NOD mice have a unique MHC class II haplotype (I-Ag7) that is highly similar to HLA-DQ8,20 and they only develop anti-insulin AAb consistently.21 Both I-Ag7 and DQ8 are known to present the same key epitope of insulin (B9:23), which was found to be essential for T1D to develop in NOD mice.22 Therefore, the NOD mouse may constitute a reasonable model for the human endotype featuring HLA-DQ8 and anti-insulin, until humanized mice can be produced to model other endotypes.23