Commensal bacteria protect against food allergen sensitization

Creators: Stefka, Andrew T.; Feehley, Taylor; Tripathi, Prabhanshu; Qiu, Ju; McCoy, Kathy; Mazmanian, Sarkis K.; Tjota, Melissa Y.; Seo, Goo-Young; Cao, Severine; Theriault, Betty R.; Antonopoulos, Dionysios A.; Zhou, Liang; Chang, Eugene B.; Fu, Yang-Xin; Nagler, Cathryn R.

Abstract

Environmentally induced alterations in the commensal microbiota have been implicated in the increasing prevalence of food allergy. We show here that sensitization to a food allergen is increased in mice that have been treated with antibiotics or are devoid of a commensal microbiota. By selectively colonizing gnotobiotic mice, we demonstrate that the allergy-protective capacity is conferred by a Clostridia-containing microbiota. Microarray analysis of intestinal epithelial cells from gnotobiotic mice revealed a previously unidentified mechanism by which Clostridia regulate innate lymphoid cell function and intestinal epithelial permeability to protect against allergen sensitization. Our findings will inform the development of novel approaches to prevent or treat food allergy based on modulating the composition of the intestinal microbiota.

Additional Information

© 2014 National Academy of Sciences. Edited by Dan R. Littman, New York University Medical Center, New York, NY, and approved August 5, 2014 (received for review June 25, 2014). Published online before print August 25, 2014, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1412008111. We thank the staff of The University of Chicago Gnotobiotic Research Animal Facility for their expert technical assistance; T. Karrison (The University of Chicago Biostatistics Core) for advice on statistical analysis; S. Chervonsky and other colleagues for critical review of the manuscript; andW. Ouyang (Genentech) for providing neutralizing antibody to IL-22 (8E11), its isotype control, and an IL-22-Fc fusion protein for this study. This work was supported by Food Allergy Research and Education; a gift from the Bunning family; US National Institutes of Health Grants AI106302 (to C.R.N.), DK078938 (to S.K.M.), AI089954 (to L.Z.), AI091962 (to L.Z.), and T32AI007090-33 (to T.F.); and University of Chicago Digestive Diseases Research Core Center Grant DK42086. Author contributions: A.T.S., T.F., P.T., B.R.T., D.A.A., Y.-X.F., and C.R.N. designed research; A.T.S., T.F., P.T., J.Q., M.Y.T., G.-Y.S., S.C., B.R.T., and D.A.A. performed research; K.M., S.K.M., D.A.A., L.Z., E.B.C., and Y.-X.F. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; A.T.S., T.F., P.T., J.Q., M.Y.T., S.C., D.A.A., and C.R.N. analyzed data; and A.T.S., T.F., and C.R.N. wrote the paper. Conflict of interest statement: A provisional US patent application (61/937952) was filed on February 10, 2014. This Direct Submission article had a prearranged editor. Data deposition: The DNA sequences reported in this paper have been deposited in the MG-RAST database (project no. 7173). The Microarray data has been deposited in the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo (series no. GSE60039). This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1412008111/-/DCSupplemental.

Attached Files

Published - 13145.full.pdf

Supplemental Material - pnas.201412008SI.pdf

Files

13145.full.pdf

Files (1.7 MB)

Name	Size	Download all
13145.full.pdf md5:dda94935aca6bc917378f6a494c33409	1.1 MB	Preview Download
pnas.201412008SI.pdf md5:b78dc6cb68a491967e3989c79e9933b5	616.0 kB	Preview Download

Additional details

	All versions	This version
Views	0	0
Downloads	0	0
Data volume	0 Bytes	0 Bytes