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Severe Food Allergies Turned Off in Mice
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101001163344.htm
ScienceDaily (Oct. 2, 2010) — Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered
a way to turn off the immune system's allergic reaction to certain
food proteins in mice, a discovery that could have implications for
the millions of people who suffer severe reactions to foods, such as
peanuts and milk.
The findings, published online in the journal Nature Medicine, provide
hope that the body could [under close medical supervision] be trained
to tolerate food allergies that lead to roughly 300,000 emergency room
visits and 100 to 200 deaths each year.
The research team, led by Shau-Ku Huang, Ph.D., a professor of
medicine, and Yufeng Zhou, M.D., Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in the
Division of Allergy and Clinical Immunology at Johns Hopkins
University School of Medicine, discovered that one kind of immune cell
in the gastrointestinal tract called lamina propria dendritic cells
(LPDC) -- considered the first line of defense for a body's immune
system -- expresses a special receptor, SIGNR1, which appears on the
cells' surface and binds to specific sugars.
By targeting this receptor using sugar-modified protein, researchers
were able to keep food proteins that would have induced a severe, even
deadly, allergic reaction from causing any serious harm.
"There is no cure for food allergies, and the primary treatment is
avoidance of the offending protein," Zhou says. "This could teach our
bodies to create a new immune response and we would no longer be
allergic to the protein."
The researchers hope to confirm whether this promising process in mice
can also occur in people.
Food allergies are triggered by the immune system and, in some people,
can cause severe symptoms or even a life-threatening reaction known as
anaphylaxis. In the United States, it is estimated that six to eight
percent of children under the age of three and nearly four percent of
adults have food allergies, and the prevalence is rising. Because of
the extreme difficulty in avoiding all food allergen exposure and the
lack of effective treatments, preventive and therapeutic strategies
are urgently needed, Zhou says.
In the laboratory, Zhou and his colleagues took a food protein that
causes allergies in mice and modified it by adding special sugars.
They hypothesized that, when ingested by the mice, the modified
proteins would be able to bind to what are known as the SIGNR1
receptors on the immune system cells. Bound in this way, the immune
system would learn to tolerate the modified food protein -- and the
protein would no longer induce an allergic reaction, even when
consumed in its unmodified form.
Zhou fed his mice the modified protein once a day for three days. Five
days later, he tested them by feeding them the protein in its
unmodified form. Another group of mice was not fed the modified
protein at all. The severity of the allergic response to the
unmodified protein -- which in the control-group mice tended to be
tremors, convulsions and/or death -- was significantly decreased in
those mice that had been pre-fed the modified protein. Some still had
minor reactions like itchiness or puffiness around the eyes and snout,
but none had serious ones. These mice appeared to be desensitized to
the food protein, even when it was fed to them in its unmodified form,
says Zhou. In this model, SIGNR1 plays a key role in shutting off some
responses in the immune cells, but whether this is the only function
of this receptor is, at present, unknown.
Other Johns Hopkins researchers on the study include Hirokazu
Kawasaki, Shih-Chang Hsu, Reiko T. Lee, Xu Yao, Beverly Plunkett,
Jinrong Fu and Yuan C. Lee.
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by
ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Johns Hopkins Medical
Institutions.
Journal Reference:
1. Yufeng Zhou, Hirokazu Kawasaki, Shih-Chang Hsu, Reiko T Lee, Xu
Yao, Beverly Plunkett, Jinrong Fu, Kuender Yang, Yuan C Lee, Shau-Ku
Huang. Oral tolerance to food-induced systemic anaphylaxis mediated by
the C-type lectin SIGNR1. Nature Medicine, 2010; DOI: 10.1038/nm.2201
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"Ethics" is simply a last-gasp attempt by deist conservatives and
orthodox dogmatics to keep humanity in ignorance and obscurantism,
through the well tried fermentation of fear, the fear of science and
new technologies.
There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history,
it is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations.
On the contrary, let us embrace Science and the new technologies
unfettered, for it is these which will liberate mankind from the
myth of god, and free us from our age old fears, from disease,
death and the sweat of labour.
Rael
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