Natural allergen exposure boosts plasmablast-derived IgE with pre-established specificity to reload allergic effector cells (IMAGE)
Caption
As exemplified by birch pollen and its major allergen Bet v 1, natural allergen exposure during the pollen season triggers a transient increase in secondary IgE production which is derived from IgE+ and Bet v 1-specific plasmablasts but not from B cells, which increase in number in the blood. Allergen-specific IgE antibodies are directed against pre-established epitopes that are different from those recognized by IgG antibodies, and the kinetics of their increase are not strictly connected to alterations in allergen-specific IgG. IgE VH regions obtained from patients sensitized primarily to the Bet v 1 allergen before and after allergen exposure share high similarities across different patients, show high rates of somatic mutations and may be derived from common IgE+ precursors which become activated by mucosal allergen contact. The increase in plasmablast-derived IgE occurring during natural allergen exposure reloads allergen-specific effector cells such as basophils, leading to increased allergen sensitivity in allergic patients after allergen exposure. Created in BioRender. Byazrova, M. (2025) https://BioRender.com/eyw3fqj
Credit
Professor Rudolf Valenta from Medical University of Vienna, Austria Image source link: https://doi.org/10.1007/s44466-025-00018-w
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CC BY-NC-ND