- Casanova, Jean-Laurent;
- Tree, Timothy;
- Oram, Richard;
- Johnson, Matthew;
- Ogishi, Masato;
- Domingo-Vila, Clara;
- De Franco, Elisa;
- Wakeling, Matthew;
- Imane, Zineb;
- Resnick, Brittany;
- Williams, Evangelia;
- Galão, Rui;
- Caswell, Richard;
- Russ-Silsby, James;
- Seeleuthner, Yoann;
- Rinchai, Darawan;
- Fagniez, Iris;
- Benson, Basilin;
- Dufort, Matthew;
- Speake, Cate;
- Smithmyer, Megan;
- Hudson, Michelle;
- Dobbs, Rebecca;
- Hattersley, Andrew;
- Zhang, Peng;
- Boisson-Dupuis, Stephanie;
- Anderson, Mark;
- Quandt, Zoe
We previously reported two siblings with inherited PD-1 deficiency who died from autoimmune pneumonitis at 3 and 11 years of age after developing other autoimmune manifestations, including type 1 diabetes (T1D). We report here two siblings, aged 10 and 11 years, with neonatal-onset T1D (diagnosed at the ages of 1 day and 7 wk), who are homozygous for a splice-site variant of CD274 (encoding PD-L1). This variant results in the exclusive expression of an alternative, loss-of-function PD-L1 protein isoform in overexpression experiments and in the patients primary leukocytes. Surprisingly, cytometric immunophenotyping and single-cell RNA sequencing analysis on blood leukocytes showed largely normal development and transcriptional profiles across lymphoid and myeloid subsets in the PD-L1-deficient siblings, contrasting with the extensive dysregulation of both lymphoid and myeloid leukocyte compartments in PD-1 deficiency. Our findings suggest that PD-1 and PD-L1 are essential for preventing early-onset T1D but that, unlike PD-1 deficiency, PD-L1 deficiency does not lead to fatal autoimmunity with extensive leukocytic dysregulation.