Those affected often suffer for the rest of their lives: Researchers discover allergy memory cells for the first time

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In their study published in the journal “Science Translational Medicine,” Miyo Ota of the Icahn School of Medicine (San Diego/California) and her co-authors examined the immune response of 58 children with peanut allergies and 13 children without such an allergy. disease in detail.

Whether “simple” hay fever, allergic asthma or food allergy, the causal mechanisms are always the same: certain immune cells develop into cells called B cells, plasma cells. The latter produces IgE antibodies, which then fight against allergens.

However, plasma cells are generally short-lived; So, according to scientists, this doesn’t explain why allergies often last a lifetime.

In the study, researchers found that children with allergies had large amounts of very special B cells called type 2 polarized B memory cells. These B cells produce heavily mutated receptors that are particularly good at recognizing the peanut allergen and can quickly switch to producing IgE antibodies. This suggests that these cells explain the long duration of peanut allergy,” the scientific journal noted.

In another study in the same journal, a second team of researchers showed that these memory cells may also play a role in other allergies. They examined the immune memory of adults allergic to birch pollen, dust mites, and peanuts, as well as people without allergies. In these studies, people with allergies also had large amounts of allergy memory cells.

As Australian expert Anouk von Borstel wrote in a review of the studies in the journal, the results could yield new, long-term effective treatment options for allergies.

(SDA)

Source : Blick