An international team of researchers has developed a new therapeutic approach for individuals allergic to multiple substances, including foods and pollens. The study, published in Nature Communications, offers a potential path forward for the more than seven million Europeans affected by complex allergies.
Currently, managing multiple allergies can be incredibly challenging. Patients are often advised to avoid all implicated foods, a difficult strategy to maintain when numerous sources exist and accidental exposure can lead to severe reactions. While traditional immunotherapy offers a long-term curative option, it’s a lengthy process with no guarantee of complete protection and can be discontinued due to adverse reactions.
The research addresses a significant gap in allergy treatment, particularly for conditions like the non-specific lipid transfer protein (nsLTP) syndrome, a common food allergy in Southern Europe. This syndrome involves a reaction to proteins found in a wide range of fruits, nuts, legumes, and pollens – with peach being a primary example.
“We needed to design a therapy capable of tackling several allergies at once, quickly and safely,” explained Esperanza Rivera-de-Torre, a researcher at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and a lead author of the study.
The team’s innovative approach centers around two key advancements. First, they created a “consensus allergen” – an artificial protein representing the structural average of the entire family of allergenic proteins responsible for cross-reactivity. This molecule, while not naturally occurring, contains the common immune-triggering elements, allowing a single intervention to induce an immune response against multiple sources.
Second, researchers utilized messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, similar to that used in some COVID-19 vaccines, to deliver this allergen. In this method, the mRNA acts as a carrier, prompting the body’s cells to synthesize the allergen in a controlled manner. This triggers an immune response that blocks the allergen’s ability to cause a reaction and instead promotes a protective immune response.
Experiments conducted on animal models demonstrated that this immunotherapy successfully induced antibodies capable of recognizing and blocking allergens from various food and pollen sources, even exceeding the protection achieved with traditional immunotherapy using individual natural allergens. Importantly, the treatment was found to be safe in the studied models, with no adverse reactions observed during immunization.
While animals treated with the therapy still exhibited some symptoms after allergen exposure in a severe allergy model, their immune profiles suggest that optimizing the formulation and delivery method could lead to a more effective therapeutic solution in the future. The findings underscore the potential for broader, safer, and more personalized immunotherapies and highlight the importance of international collaboration in biomedical research.
The study involved collaboration between DTU, the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), IBIMA-Plataforma BIONAND (Málaga), and specialists from Vall d’Hebron and Clínic hospitals in Barcelona.
