Researchers Find Method for Turning Off Peanut Allergy

CHICAGOBy attaching peanut proteins to blood cells and reintroducing them into mice with peanut allergies, researchers at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine found they were able to turn off the allergic reaction.

We think weve found a way to safely and rapidly turn off the allergic response to food allergies," said Paul Bryce, PhD, an assistant professor of medicine in the division of allergy-immunology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Their immune system saw the peanut protein as perfectly normal because it was already presented on the white blood cells. Without the treatment, these animals would have gone into anaphylactic shock."

Researchers also found this approach has a second benefit: It creates a more normal, balanced immune system by increasing the number of regulatory T cells, immune cells important for recognizing the peanut proteins as normal.

T cells come in different flavors" Bryce said. This method turns off the dangerous Th2 T cell that causes the allergy and expands the good, calming regulatory T cells. We are supposed to be able to eat peanuts. Weve restored this tolerance to the immune system."

Bryce thinks more than one protein can be attached to the surface of the cell and, thus, target multiple food allergies at one time.

In the second part of the study, the researchers used the same approach with an egg protein, which was to provoke an immune response - similar to an asthma attack -- in the lungs. They attached the proteins to white blood cells and infused the cells back into the mice. When the mice inhaled the asthma-provoking egg protein, their lungs didnt become inflamed.  

The study is published in the Journal of Immunology.