Peanut allergy turned off by tricking immune system

October 11, 2011 in Medical research

Researchers have turned off a life-threatening allergic response to peanuts by tricking the immune system into thinking the nut proteins aren't a threat to the body, according to a new preclinical study from Northwestern Medicine. The peanut tolerance was achieved by attaching peanut proteins onto blood cells and reintroducing them to the body -- an approach that ultimately may be able to target more than one food allergy at a time.

"We think we've found a way to safely and rapidly turn off the to food allergies," said Paul Bryce, an assistant professor of medicine in the division of allergy-immunology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Bryce and Stephen Miller, professor of microbiology-immunology at Feinberg, are co-senior authors of a paper published in the .

It's the first time this method for creating tolerance in the immune system has been used in allergic diseases. It has previously been used in autoimmune diseases.

The approach also has a second benefit. It creates a more normal, balanced immune system by increasing the number of , 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. We've restored this tolerance to the immune system."

often cause life-threatening allergic reactions, called anaphylaxis. Each year there are between 15,000 and 30,000 episodes of food-induced anaphylaxis and 100 to 200 related deaths in the United States, according to the National Institutes of Health. There is no safe treatment to protect people from a severe allergic reaction to food.

When an allergic person eats a peanut, the proteins are absorbed through the intestine and can activate a life-threatening, full-body immune response. This includes constriction of the airways, low blood pressure and/or shock and can lead to loss of consciousness and death.

Using a mouse model that mimics a life-threatening peanut allergy (which the Northwestern team developed several years ago), researchers attached peanut proteins onto white blood cells called leukocytes and infused those back into the mice. After two treatments, the mice were fed a peanut extract. They did not have the life-threatening allergic reaction because their immune system now recognized the protein as safe.

"Their saw the peanut protein as perfectly normal because it was already presented on the white blood cells," Bryce said. "Without the treatment, these animals would have gone into anaphylactic shock." 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, Northwestern 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 and infused the cells back into the mice. When the mice inhaled the asthma-provoking egg protein, their lungs didn't become inflamed.

"This is an exciting new way in which we can regulate specific and may eventually be used in a clinical setting for patients," said Miller, the Judy Gugenheim Research Professor at the Feinberg School.

Miller also has used the same approach in autoimmune diseases. His previous published research has shown the same technique to stop the progression of multiple sclerosis and type 1 diabetes, both autoimmune diseases, in animal models. This approach is currently being tested in multiple sclerosis patients in a phase I/IIa clinical trial.

For and allergic airway diseases, Miller also is working with microparticles rather than white cells to induce tolerance, because the microparticles are more easily standardizd for manufacturing.

Provided by Northwestern University search and more info website

4.8 /5 (5 votes)  

Filter


Move the slider to adjust rank threshold, so that you can hide some of the comments.


Display comments: newest first

hush1
Oct 11, 2011

Rank: not rated yet
Impressive.
Congratulations.
Rank 4.8 /5 (5 votes)
Related Stories
Relevant PhysicsForums posts

More news stories

H. pylori, smoking trends, and gastric cancer in US men

Trends in Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) and smoking explain a significant proportion of the decline of intestinal-type noncardia gastric adenocarcinoma (NCGA) incidence in US men between 1978 and 2008, and are estimated ...

Medical research created 2 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Common food supplement fights degenerative brain disorders

Widely available in pharmacies and health stores, phosphatidylserine is a natural food supplement produced from beef, oysters, and soy. Proven to improve cognition and slow memory loss, it's a popular treatment for older ...

Medical research created 7 hours ago | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Finding a family for a pair of orphan receptors in the brain

Researchers at Emory University have identified a protein that stimulates a pair of "orphan receptors" found in the brain, solving a long-standing biological puzzle and possibly leading to future treatments for neurological ...

Medical research created 7 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Insight into the dazzling impact of insulin in cells

Australian scientists have charted the path of insulin action in cells in precise detail like never before. This provides a comprehensive blueprint for understanding what goes wrong in diabetes.

Medical research created 8 hours ago | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Do men's and women's hearts burn fuel differently?

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine will study gender differences in how the heart uses and stores fat—its main energy source—and how changes in fat metabolism play ...

Medical research created 10 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0


Small cancer risk following CT scans in childhood and adolescence confirmed

The gap between life expectancy in patients with a mental illness and the general population has widened since 1985 and efforts to reduce this gap should focus on improving physical health, suggest researchers in a paper ...

Life expectancy gap widens between those with mental illness and general population

The gap between life expectancy in patients with a mental illness and the general population has widened since 1985 and efforts to reduce this gap should focus on improving physical health, suggest researchers in a paper ...

Dietary advice on added sugar is damaging our health, warns heart expert

Dietary advice on added sugar is damaging our health, warns a cardiologist in BMJ today. Dr. Aseem Malhotra believes that "not only has this advice been manipulated by the food industry for profit but it is actually a risk ...

Failure to use linked health records may lead to biased disease estimates

Failure to use linked electronic health records may lead to biased estimates of heart attack incidence and outcome, warn researchers in a paper published in BMJ today.

Iodine deficiency during pregnancy may adversely affect children's mental development

A study of around 1,000 UK mothers and their children, published in The Lancet, has revealed that iodine deficiency in pregnancy may have an adverse effect on children's mental development. The research raises concerns that t ...

New sleeping pill poised to hit US markets

An experimental sleeping pill from US drug company Merck is effective at helping people fall and stay asleep, according to reviewers at the US Food and Drug Administration, which could soon approve the new drug.