How immune cells respond to peanuts in allergic mice

DETROIT: Researchers have come up with an immunotherapy vaccine that happens to treat food allergens, at least among mice.

The think tank at the University of Michigan’s Mary H. Weiser Food Allergy Center, reached to a conclusion that immunizing peanut allergic mice can redirect how immune cells responded to peanuts in allergic mice.

“Importantly, we can do this after allergy is established, which provides for potential therapy of allergies in humans.”

The vaccine generates a different sort of immune response that avoids allergic symptoms – specifically allergic responses like itchy skin or trouble breathing.

“By re-directing the immune responses, our vaccine not only suppresses the response but prevents the activation of cells that would initiate allergic reactions.”

“We’re changing the way the immune cells respond upon exposure to allergens,” said Dr. Jessica O’Konek, lead author on the study.

Within a two decade analysis, the test was instigated on a set of mice that were sensitive to peanuts and with an exposure to the vaccine for about a three-month span, thrice in a month specifically; the mice were treated with peanuts two weeks after the final dosage. The vaccine is administered by nose in three doses per month.

The researchers observed that the untreated mice with peanut allergy were responsive to allergic symptoms, such as trouble breathing and itching – while the vaccine mice with similar sensitivity reacted to zilch or minimal allergy.

The team is expecting that the vaccine may treat food allergens among humans as well as extend its resistance to such sensitivity.

“Our goal is to use immunotherapy to change the immune system’s response by developing a therapeutic vaccine for food allergies.”