Study: Treat Allergies Before Pollen Season Begins

Allergy sufferers may benefit from beginning anti-inflammatory hay fever therapy prior to the beginning of pollen season, according to a new study.

“Seasonal allergic rhinitis is a chronic inflammation in the nasal mucosa triggered by inhaled aeroallergens. The inflammatory reaction is controlled by allergen-specific T cells, but where and how these T cells become activated is not fully understood,” said the study’s authors.
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In order to explore whether these T cells reside in the nasal mucosa all year or are acquired after exposure to allergens, and whether allergic rhinitis could be induced outside of the regular pollen season, researchers obtained mucosal biopsies from the lower turbinate of patients with both birch or grass-pollen allergic rhinitis as well as healthy controls.

The nasal samples were then exposed to relevant allergens, and after 24 hours, researchers harvested the cultures for analysis.

Researchers found that allergen-specific T cells did in fact resided within the mucosa beyond the pollen season and reacted strongly to pollen extract, suggesting that the T cells are long-lived resident cells.

“Our explant model indicated that local presentation of antigen to resident allergen-specific Th2 cells are early events in the pathogenesis of allergic rhinitis,” they concluded.

“These findings identify possible cellular targets for anti-inflammatory treatment.”

The complete study is published in the March issue of Clinical & Experimental Allergy.

-Michelle Canales Butcher

Reference:

Skrindo I, Hoffmann C, Gran E et al. IL-5 production by resident mucosal allergen-specific T cells in an explant model of allergic rhinitis. Clin Exp Allergy. 2015 March [epub ahead of print] doi: 10.1111/cea.12543.