Peyer's patches and mesenteric lymph nodes cooperatively promote enteropathy in a mouse model of food allergy.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: To improve the efficacy and safety of tolerance induction for food allergies, identifying the tissues responsible for inducing intestinal inflammation and subsequent oral tolerance is important. We used OVA23-3 mice, which express an ovalbumin-specific T-cell receptor, to elucidate the roles of local and systemic immune tissues in intestinal inflammation. METHODS AND RESULTS: OVA23-3 mice developed marked enteropathy after consuming a diet containing egg white (EW diet) for 10 days but overcame the enteropathy (despite continued moderate inflammation) after receiving EW diet for a total of 28 days. Injecting mice with anti-IL-4 antibody or cyclosporine A confirmed the involvement of Th2 cells in the development of the enteropathy. To assess the individual contributions of Peyer's patches (PPs), mesenteric lymph nodes (MLNs), and the spleen to the generation of effector CD4+ T-cells, we analyzed the IL-4 production, proliferation in response to ovalbumin, and CD4+ T-cell numbers of these tissues. EW feeding for 10 days induced significant IL-4 production in PPs, the infiltration of numerous CD4+ T-cells into MLNs, and a decrease in CD4+ T-cell numbers in spleen. On day 28, CD4+ T-cells from all tissues had attenuated responses to ovalbumin, suggesting tolerance acquisition, although MLN CD4+ T-cells still maintained IL-4 production with proliferation. In addition, removal of MLNs but not the spleen decreased the severity of enteropathy and PP-disrupted mice showed delayed onset of EW-induced inflammatory responses. Disruption of peripheral lymphoid tissues or of both PPs and MLNs almost completely prevented the enteropathy. CONCLUSIONS: PPs and MLNs coordinately promote enteropathy by generating effector T-cells during the initial and exacerbated phases, respectively; the spleen is dispensable for enteropathy and shows tolerogenic responses throughout EW-feeding. The regulation of PPs may suppress the initiation of intestinal inflammation, subsequently restricting MLNs and inhibiting the progression of food-allergic enteropathy.

Intestinal commensal bacteria promote T cell hyporesponsiveness and down-regulate the serum antibody responses induced by dietary antigen.

Colonization of the gut by commensal bacteria modulates the induction of oral tolerance and allergy. However, how these intestinal bacteria modulate antigen-specific T cell responses induced by oral antigens remains unclear. In order to investigate this, we used germ-free (GF) ovalbumin (OVA)-specific T cell receptor transgenic (OVA23-3) mice. Conventional (CV) or GF mice were administered an OVA-containing diet. Cytokine production by CD4(+) cells from spleen (SP), mesenteric lymph nodes (MLN) and Peyer's patches (PP) was evaluated by ELISA, as was the peripheral antibody titer. T cell phenotype was assessed by flow cytometry. CD4(+) cells from the SP and MLN of CV and GF mice fed an OVA diet for 3 weeks produced significantly less IL-2 than the corresponding cells from mice receiving a control diet, suggesting that oral tolerance could be induced at the T cell level in the systemic and intestinal immune systems of both bacterial condition of mice. However, we also observed that the T cell hyporesponsiveness induced by dietary antigen was delayed in the systemic immune tissues and was weaker in the intestinal immune tissues of the GF mice. Intestinal MLN and PP CD4(+) T cells from these animals also produced lower levels of IL-10, had less activated/memory type CD45RB(low) cells, and expressed lower levels of CTLA-4 but not Foxp3 compared to their CV counterparts. Furthermore, GF mice produced higher serum levels of OVA-specific antibodies than CV animals. CD40L expression by SP CD4(+) cells from GF mice fed OVA was higher than that of CV mice. These results suggest that intestinal commensal bacteria promote T cell hyporesponsiveness and down-regulate serum antibody responses induced by dietary antigens through modulation of the intestinal and systemic T cell phenotype.