Onyinye Iweala, MD, PhD, assistant professor in the division of rheumatology, allergy and immunology, and Wesley Burks, MD, Dean of the School of Medicine and CEO of UNC Health, published a review in Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology looking at how IgE-producing B cells in the gut expand the gut’s role in food allergy.
“Before this study, it was believed that long-term allergic antibody responses were probably driven by IgE-producing B cells clustered in the bone marrow. But this didn’t completely make sense for food allergies,” Iweala said. “When you eat something like peanuts, it goes to your gut, not your bone marrow. Identifying these IgE-producing B cells in the gut is a step forward in better understanding and treating food allergies, and possibly all allergies.”
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