A specialized type of immune cell appears primed to make the type of antibodies that lead to allergies, two research groups report.
Allergy sufferers may one day be able to erase the source of their congestion, itchy skin and swollen lips and throat thanks to two studies that have uncovered elusive immune cells that maintain allergies over the long haul, often for a lifetime.. Memory B cells are important for long-lasting protection against infectious diseases, but this subset is primed to make the type of antibodies that lead to allergies.
Immunologist Joshua Koenig and colleagues examined more than 90,000 memory B cells from six people with birch allergies, four people allergic to dust mites and five people with no allergies. Using a technique called RNA sequencing to find out what individual cells were making, the team identified specific memory B cells, that it dubbed MBC2s, that make antibodies and proteins associated with the immune response that fights parasitic worms and causes allergies.
It’s clear that both groups have found the same cells, says Cecilia Berin, an allergist and immunologist at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. There are “very consistent findings between the two groups,” she says.
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