title: Novel developments in the mechanisms of immune tolerance to allergens.
abstract: Allergy is the result of a disbalanced immune response to environmental innocuous antigens. Despite of accumulating data to define the pathomechanisms that take place in case of allergic diseases a detailed understanding of sequence of events that lead to the "normal" scenario of tolerance development are still under debate. Allergen-specific immunotherapy is the only causal treatment of allergic diseases. It modifies the immune response to a particular antigen to achieve tolerance against the symptom-causing allergen. This process is considered to mirror physiological peripheral tolerance induction. A number of immunological changes have been described to occur under allergen immunotherapy, including the generation of allergen-specific regulatory T cells, the induction of allergen-specific IgG4, an increase in the Th1/Th2 cytokine ratio and decreased activation and function of effector cells such as mast cells, basophils and eosinophils.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Medical University of Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Eiwegger
authors.forename: Saskia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gruber
authors.forename: Zsolt
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Szépfalusi
authors.forename: Cezmi A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Akdis
mesh_terms: D000485:Allergens / Q000276:immunology*; D003888:Desensitization, Immunologic / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D007108:Immune Tolerance / Q000276:immunology*; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology
chemical_list: D000485:Allergens
keywords: T-cells; allergen-specific immunotherapy; allergy; tolerance