Jordana lab discovers novel mechanisms to explain persistent IgE and allergic responses to food allergens
Individuals who are allergic to foods such as nuts and shellfish, suffer from these allergies for the entirety of their lives, with no disease-transforming therapies currently available [...]
Individuals who are allergic to foods such as nuts and shellfish, suffer from these allergies for the entirety of their lives, with no disease-transforming therapies currently available. Better understanding food allergy is an important area of research in Dr. Manal Jordana’s lab and a recent study led by post-doctoral fellow Dr. Rodrigo Jiménez-Saiz that was published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, looks at the underlying mechanisms involved in allergic responses to food allergens. The conventional belief is that lifelong IgE in food allergy is due to the generation of IgE-producing plasmablasts by germinal center B cells.
These IgE-producing plasmablasts travel to the bone marrow, where they secrete IgE for the rest of an allergic individual’s life. However, this study shows a novel mechanism to explain persistent IgE in allergic responses. Using various animal models and in vitro assays, Jiménez-Saiz et al. showed that lifelong food allergy is the result of the activation of allergen-specific long-lived memory B-cells, which upon allergen re-exposure, replenish allergen-specific IgE-secreting plasma cells in an IL-4-producing CD4 T cell dependent manner. This is a novel finding, and is especially impressive due to the extremely rare population of antigen-specific IgE+ memory cells that Drs. Jiménez-Saiz and Chu were able to study in the animals across a prolonged period of time.
Furthermore, this work suggests that lifelong food allergies may be the result of re-exposure to allergens which recurrently activate memory B and CD4 T cells, and that the mechanisms involved in activating and maintaining these memory responses should be targeted in the search of potential therapies for IgE-mediated food allergies. The paper is now available to read online here. Congratulations to Rodrigo, and the entire Jordana lab for this great work and achievement!
McMaster Immunology Research Centre, ResearchRelated News
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