Cause of mysterious food allergy discovered: It is genes

Cause of mysterious food allergy has finally been discovered. Experts say it is genes that is to be blamed.

A new study claimed to have found the reason behind an inexplicable food allergy and claimed to have a new therapy that can cure it.

Eosinophillic esophagitis (EoE), a chronic inflammatory disorder of the esophagus which is prompted by allergic hypersensitivity to some foods and an over-accretion in the esophagus of white blood cells called eosinophils.

EoE is responsible for various gastrointestinal illness including reflux-like symptoms, vomiting, difficulty swallowing, tissue scarring, fibrosis, the formation of strictures and other medical problems.

Scientists at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center found that a molecular pathway explicit to epithelial tissue in the esophagus linking a gene called CAPN14, which becomes considerably up-regulated in the disease progression.

Researchers claimed that when the epithelial cells were exposed to Interleukin 13 (IL-13), an immune hormone and a prominent molecular activator of EoE, it led remarkable up-regulation of CAPN14. The scientists illustrated this as an epigenetic hotspot for EoE on the cells’ chromosomes.

“In a nutshell, we have used cutting edge genomic analysis of patient DNA as well as gene and protein analysis to explain why people develop EoE,” explained Marc E. Rothenberg, MD, senior investigator on the study and director of the Center for Eosinophilic Disorders at Cincinnati Children’s. “This is a major breakthrough for this condition and gives us a new way to develop therapeutic strategies by modifying the expression of caplain14 and its activity. Our results are immediately applicable to EoE and have broad implications for understanding eosinophilic disorders as well as allergies in general.”

CAPN14 encodes an enzyme in the esophagus which is an element of the disease process called calpain14. As this calpain14 can be regulated by drugs, scientists are looking forward to new therapeutic strategies in finding new treatment for this disorder.

“The current study links allergic responses mediated through IL-13 with an esophageal specific pathway, and answers a long-standing question in the allergy field of why people develop tissue specific disease manifestations,” Rothenberg said. “We have uncovered that this can be explained by the interplay of genetic susceptibility elements in allergic sensitization pathways with the newly discovered esophageal specific pathway. Thus, two steps are necessary, one dictated by allergy and one dictated by calpain14 in the esophagus.”

The details of the study have been published in the journal Nature Genetics.

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