Why do some allergies go away over time while others stick around forever? Recent research is beginning to shed light on the mystery. (Image credit: mladenbalinovac via Getty Images)
Warmer weather is about to hit the U.S., replacing the short, cold days of winter, but it will also bring with it a surge of seasonal spring allergies. Could there come a point when allergies become a thing of the past?
Remarkably, there is a glimmer of hope on this front.
Scientists have recently made a step forward in explaining why some allergies can persist throughout life while others disappear. It turns out that the persistence of allergies may be linked to a unique type of immune cell — and in the future, by altering or eliminating these cells, scientists could theoretically help make allergies less bothersome or even cure them entirely.
Allergies have long been a mystery to scientists — researchers don’t fully understand why allergies affect some people but not others, or why they occur in the first place. Previous research has shown that the type of antibody most often associated with allergies is produced by cells that don’t live long in the body, making it difficult to understand lifelong allergies in people.
Two recent studies, published back-to-back in the journal Science Translational Medicine, may help clear up the mystery. One looked at children with allergies, the other at adults, and both studies described a unique type of immune cell that had not previously been linked to allergies.
These cells normally produce a type of antibody not associated with allergies, known as immunoglobulin G (IgG). However, a subset of these cells actually switches to producing an antibody associated with allergies, called immunoglobulin E (IgE), when they encounter an allergen, whether it's pollen, pet dander, or peanuts.
IgE is usually produced by short-lived plasma cells that produce antibodies as an immediate and temporary defense for the body. These antibodies are thought to help fight parasites, but in allergies they attack harmless proteins instead.
The newly described cells are a type of memory B cell that primarily remember viruses and bacteria and release IgG when they attack these pathogens. But now scientists have discovered a subset of memory B cells that remember allergens and can produce IgE. These cells are not short-lived like plasma cells, but instead remain in the body indefinitely — for many years or perhaps for a person’s entire life.
The new study could be useful for developing new treatments or tests for allergies – for example, to assess the likelihood that childhood allergies will persist into adulthood, the researchers say.
“These cells can be analyzed as a kind of [biological marker] of allergy risk or allergy persistence,” says Maria Curotto De Lafaye, professor of pediatrics, immunology, and allergy at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City and senior author of the study in children.
This study focused on children with peanut allergies and analyzed blood samples from 58 children with peanut allergies and 13 without them. A second study looked at a smaller number of blood samples from adults with a variety of allergies, including six with birch pollen allergies, four with dust mite allergies, and 11 with peanut allergies.
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While all the children with allergies avoided peanuts, participants in the study of adults with birch pollen allergies gave blood samples before and after starting immunotherapy. This treatment is designed to desensitize the immune system by exposing patients to small amounts of the allergen, gradually increasing the dose over time.
Both studies looked for signs that memory B cells might switch to producing
Sourse: www.livescience.com
