The allergic potential of food proteins

Food allergy is among the most common immunological diseases in the industrialized world. But still, very little is known about how the mechanism of food sensitization occurs and which factors govern the severity of allergic symptoms. Despite the abundance of proteins present in food, people develop allergies to a rather limited number of protein families. In an anaphylaxis model, we were able to show that milk proteins of different families elicit significantly different immune responses. Factors intrinsic to the protein, not related to uptake, seem to determine the nature of the immune responses in the gastrointestinal tract. Our focus will be to investigate the immunological mechanism underlying food sensitization. Specifically, we want to determine the different mucosal induction sites of food allergens in the gastrointestinal tract. In addition, we will characterize chemokines and mucosal dendritic cells that are important in the generation of food allergy. The mechanistic insights will likely provide a scientific basis for the development of novel treatment and vaccine strategies.