Shrimp allergen extract immunotherapy induces prolonged immune tolerance in a gastro-food allergy mouse model

Abstract

Food allergies are a global health problem that continues to grow annually, with a prevalence of more than 10%. Shrimp allergy is the most common and life-threatening allergy. There is no cure for food allergies, but shrimp allergen extract (SAE) offers promise as a treatment through allergen-specific immunotherapy (AIT). However, whether SAE induces immunological tolerance in seafood allergies remains to be established. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of SAE in inducing immunological tolerance in a gastro-food allergy mouse model. For the immunotherapy evaluation, mice (n = 24) were intraperitoneally (i.p.) sensitized with 1 mg alum and 100 μg SAE in PBS on days 0, 7, and 14 and randomly divided into four groups of six: a negative control (NC) and high- to low-dose immunotherapy (HI, MI, and LI). The untreated group (n = 6) only received 1 mg alum in PBS (i.p.). All groups were challenged with 400 μg SAE (i.g.) on days 21, 22, 23, 53, and 58. Following the challenge, SAE-sensitized mice from the immunotherapy group were treated (i.p.) with 10 μg SAE for LI, 50 μg SAE for MI, and 100 μg SAE for HI on days 32, 39, and 46. The untreated and NC groups only received PBS (i.p.). All mice were euthanized on day 59. As the results, we found that SAE immunotherapy reduced systemic allergy symptom scores, serum IL-4 levels, IL-4 and FcεR1α mRNA relative expression, and mast cell degranulation in ileum tissue in allergic mice while increasing Foxp3 and IL-10 mRNA relative expression. Notably, we observed an increased ratio of IL-10 to IL-4 mRNA expression, demonstrating the efficacy of SAE immunotherapy in promoting desensitization. Thus, SAE can be developed as an immunotherapeutic agent for food allergies by inducing prolonged allergy tolerance with a wide range of allergen targets.