Some patients outgrow their food allergies even though their serum antigen-specific IgE levels remain high.

To elucidate the role of T cells in outgrowing food allergies in the presence of antigen-specific IgE, we tracked antigen-specific T-cell responses after oral antigen administration.

Ovalbumin (OVA)-specific T-cell receptor (TCR) and OVA-specific IgE transgenic (Tg) mice (OVA-TCR/IgE-Tg) and OVA-specific TCR Tg (OVA-TCR-Tg) mice were fed with high doses of OVA or PBS every other day. After 7 administrations, OVA-specific proliferation and cytokine production of mononuclear cells of the spleen, mesenteric lymph nodes, and Peyer's patches and the number of splenic CD4⁺CD25⁺ T cells were analyzed.

Without OVA administration, the splenocytes from OVA-TCR/IgE-Tg mice exhibited a higher proliferative response and produced more IL-4 and IL-10 and less IFN-γ than those from OVA-TCR-Tg mice. The proliferative responses of the splenocytes from either OVA-TCR/IgE-Tg mice or OVA-TCR-Tg mice fed with OVA were significantly reduced compared with those from PBS-fed mice. The number of OVA-specific TCR⁺ T cells decreased in the spleen from OVA-fed mice, whereas the number of CD4⁺CD25⁺ T cells increased. The suppressed proliferation of splenocytes of OVA-fed mice was partially resumed by neutralization of TGF-β1, but not of IL-10.

The presence of OVA-specific IgE modulated the OVA-specific responses of the splenocytes. Irrespective of the presence of OVA-specific IgE, repetitive oral administration of OVA induced tolerance, which seems to be composed of clonal deletion/anergy and TGF-β1–mediated active suppression.