Australian researchers have discovered new details behind peanut allergy remission in children. 

Food allergy is a global public health concern, affecting 10 per cent of infants and 5-8 per cent of children.

Because there is no cure for food allergies, management relied on avoidance of the allergenic food, resulting in reduced quality of life.

But effective treatments are in the pipeline. 

In a new study, it was found that when specific gene networks are rewired, it can drive the transition from peanut allergy to clinical remission.

The new research shows that this network reprogramming - in combination with a probiotic and peanut oral immunotherapy - essentially shuts down the allergic immune response that is responsible for causing a food allergy.

The findings come from the first study to map the complex gene-to-gene communication and connectivity underlying clinical remission of peanut allergy.

Previous studies had mostly focused on examining the levels of gene expression, without also exploring how genes interact with each other. 

But genes do not work in isolation; instead, biological responses are controlled by large numbers of genes communicating with each other, so it made sense to look at these interactions more closely.

“What we found was profound differences in network connectivity patterns between children who were allergic and those who were in remission,” says lead researcher, Murdoch Children Research Institute’s Professor Mimi Tang.

“These same changes were also seen when we compared gene networks before and after immunotherapy in the children who achieved remission following immunotherapy.”

The peanut oral immunotherapy that was used in combination with the probiotic in the trial was PRT120, a lead candidate from Prota Therapeutics, an Australian biotech company focused on bringing its novel allergy immunotherapy treatment for children with life-threatening peanut allergies to market.

About half of the children treated as part of the study achieved remission, which allowed them to stop treatment and safely eat peanuts.

Researcher Dr Sarah Ashley said while oral immunotherapy could successfully induce desensitisation and remission, desensitisation often waned after treatment ended or even during ongoing maintenance dosing.

“Certain changes in the allergen-specific immune cells, called Th2 cells, are critical to achieving lasting remission,” she said. 

“Th2 cells are essential for generating allergen-specific antibodies and the development of food allergy. We found that the Th2 signalling that drives allergy is ‘turned off’ in children in remission.”

The study is accessible here.