Associations between immune responses and the development of food allergy in infants

Associations between immune responses and the development of food allergy in infants
Shiva Sharifzadeh ,^1,* Reyhane Amrani ,² Fatemeh Ehasani ,³
1. Member of Omid research group
2. Member of Omid research group
3. Member of Omid research group
Introduction: Food allergy (FA) is an unwanted reaction due to a specific immune response to exposure to a food that occurs frequently[1]. FA poses considerable clinical and public health responsibility affecting 2–10% of infants [2]. Cow’s milk allergy (CMA), mostly is the first appearance of allergic pathology in early infancy [3]. Regulatory T cells (Treg) are an important cellular source in the context of FA and play a crucial role in this process [4-6].
Methods: The data were collected by searching PubMed, ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, Scopus, Cochrane database systematic reviews, and Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC). By searching this database, 77 articles were found, 11 of them by reading abstracts were removed and 12 of them were included in this abstract. All articles chosen from English articles.
Results: The mother’s leukocytes and Th2 cells could stimulate eosinophil recruitment. Some cytotoxic mediators which are released by the breast milk eosinophils can easily increase the permeability of the gut mucosa of the suckling infant and thus increase the passing of food allergens [7]. The statistical analysis of Perezabad et al. revealed that decreased Treg numbers were good predictors to recognize between controls and Cow’s milk protein allergy infants [8]. In a study, it was reported that in the breast milk of mothers with a CMA infant, both cytokine and cellular composition are significantly different from those of mothers with healthy infants, and this might affect the health status of the breast-fed infant [7, 9, 10]. Vassella et al. has been reported that an increase in the number of eosinophils follows human breast milk contains be associated with maternal allergy [11]. Also, Th2 cells could be transferred to the infant, then can migrate to peripheral tissues such as the skin or the lung [7]. Treg cells are an important cellular source in the context of FA [4, 5]. Chen et al. proposed that Single nucleotide polymorphisms of the interleukin-10 gene are related to allergic diseases, therefore, it might perform a serious role in the pathogenesis of FA [12].
Conclusion: In human milk, the major Immune components access to the infant’s immune system may affect it. Treg is an important cellular source in the context of FA and plays a crucial role in this process. FA may be associated with a modified Treg response to an allergen.
Keywords: food allergy, infant, neonate, immune response