title: Prevention of oral food allergy sensitization via skin application of food allergen in a mouse model.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Treatment options for food allergy remain limited. Development of novel approaches for the prevention and/or treatment of severe peanut allergy and other food allergies is urgently needed. The objective of this study was to test whether skin application of food allergen can be used as a prophylactic and/or therapeutic intervention for food allergy.
  
  
  METHODS
  Balb/C mice were given 5 weekly cutaneous application of complete peanut extract (CPE) or ovalbumin (OVA) ranging from 10 to 1000 μg on the shaved back skin, followed by 5 weekly treatments with oral CPE or OVA plus cholera toxin to induce allergic reactivity to the food. At various time points, the immunologic responses and allergic clinical manifestations to allergens were examined.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Skin application of a 10-1000 μg dose of CPE or OVA to structurally intact skin did not lead to allergic sensitization to peanut or OVA. Rather, cutaneous allergen application blocked, in a dose-dependent fashion, the subsequent induction of the oral sensitization including inhibiting oral sensitization-induced CPE-specific IgE, IgG1, and IgG2a production, suppressing the peanut anaphylaxis, and modulating the oral sensitization-promoted cytokine production. The cutaneous OVA application also resulted in similar results as seen with CPE application.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Cutaneous application of intact skin with peanut or OVA can block the development of orally induced corresponding food allergies, suggesting that allergic tolerance to peanuts and OVA might be achieved via allergen cutaneous application.
authors.affiliation: Hart and Louise Lyon Immunology Laboratory, Section of Clinical Immunology/Allergy, Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Clinical Immunology/Allergy, Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1690, USA. liwei1@fmmu.edu.cn
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Z
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Saxon
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000284:Administration, Oral; D000485:Allergens / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000276:immunology*; D000707:Anaphylaxis / Q000276:immunology; D000818:Animals; D010367:Arachis / Q000276:immunology; D016207:Cytokines / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism; D003713:Dendritic Cells / Q000276:immunology; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D005512:Food Hypersensitivity / Q000276:immunology* / Q000517:prevention & control*; D006801:Humans; D007073:Immunoglobulin E / Q000276:immunology; D007249:Inflammation / Q000276:immunology; D008198:Lymph Nodes / Q000276:immunology; D051379:Mice; D008807:Mice, Inbred BALB C; D021183:Peanut Hypersensitivity / Q000276:immunology; D012867:Skin / Q000276:immunology; D050378:T-Lymphocytes, Regulatory / Q000276:immunology
chemical_list: D000485:Allergens; D016207:Cytokines; D007073:Immunoglobulin E