*The African Face of Childhood Diabetes DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108723*

are located close to peptide-binding pockets that are related to disease code alleles (HLA-DR3 or HLA-DR4) with features of antigen display. Then, there are environmental factors that have been associated with triggering the islet cell destructions; this includes some viral infections, for example, cytomegalovirus, which will either induce the destruction of islet cells releasing β-cells antigen that will cause activation of T-cell-mediated reactivation of antibodies, or virus release proteins that resemble β-cell antigen and the immune system cross-reacts with the self-tissue.

Therefore, the autoantibody produced against the islet cell antigens as a result of environmental exposure cause injury to the pancreases of people with genetic susceptibility.
