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Food allergy diseases have rapidly increased during the last few decades. There are no therapeutics for people suffering from food allergies. Today’s treatments are only based on treating the symptoms which arise when the patient accidently get in contact with the allergens. Therefore the fears of accidental ingestion significantly impair the quality of life for millions of people around the world. Food allergy is an immune mediated response to specific proteins in food; in most cases the antibody IgE is responsible for triggering the response. One of the most promising new therapeutics for the treatment of food allergy is Omalizumabwhich binds IgE, thereby preventing it to bind FcεRI, the high-affinity IgE receptor expressed on mast cells and basophiles. These two cells are both white blood cells that contain granules of histamine. When Omalizumab binds the antibody it causes the serum IgE levels to dramatically reduce which in turn decreases the FcεRI expression on basophils and mast cells. When the FcεRI receptors lessen, the levels of released histamines decrease and thereby preventing allergic symptoms. Still, Omalizumab is only one of many allergy therapeutics targeting the IgE-interactions that is advancing with positive results showing great prospect for future research.

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More comprehensive trials are needed to determine the safety and efficiency of these therapeutics. Anyhow, continued advancement in understanding these mechanisms gives hope that a treatment for food allergy will be available in the near future.

Reference

Rebecca N. Bauer, Monali Manohar, Anne Marie Singh, David C. Jay, Kari C. Nadeau. ”The future of biologics: Applications for food allergy” Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, February 2015