Retraining the Immune System Not to Have an Allergic Reaction to Peanuts? Just Done In Mice.

Peanut Allergies in Mice Alleviated by Vaccine

U-M researchers have spent nearly two decades developing a vaccine agent and have recently translated this work to the development of a vaccine to treat food allergies. In the new study, immunizing peanut allergic mice can redirect how immune cells responded to peanuts in allergic mice.

From article, (Just three monthly doses of a nasal vaccine protected the mice from allergic reactions upon exposure to peanut, according to research from the Mary H. Weiser Food Allergy Center at the University of Michigan.

U-M researchers have spent nearly two decades developing a vaccine agent and have recently translated this work to the development of a vaccine to treat food allergies. In the new study, immunizing peanut allergic mice can redirect how immune cells responded to peanuts in allergic mice.

The new approach activates a different type of immune response that prevents allergic symptoms.

“We’re changing the way the immune cells respond upon exposure to allergens,” says lead author Jessica O’Konek, Ph.D., a research investigator at the food allergy center. “Importantly, we can do this after allergy is established, which provides for potential therapy of allergies in humans.”

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

The study, funded by grants from Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE) and the Department of Defense, was published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. It was also funded by a gift from the Shaevsky Family Foundation.

The mouse models studied responded to peanut allergies similarly as affected humans, with symptoms that included itchy skin and trouble breathing. The study assessed protection from allergic reactions two weeks after the final dose of vaccine was administered.

Studies to determine duration of protection are ongoing, but researchers are encouraged that this approach will lead to long-lasting suppression of allergies. 

The findings are another step toward a potential clinical trial down the road to test the method in humans.

“Right now, the only FDA-approved way to address food allergy is to avoid the food or suppress allergic reactions after they have already started,” O’Konek says. “Our goal is to use immunotherapy to change the immune system’s response by developing a therapeutic vaccine for food allergies.”)

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