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How could the immune cells that are responsible for allergies be singled out and eliminated?

Image credit: Dominika Polak, Christine Hafner, et al.

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Darko Savic
Darko Savic Oct 14, 2021
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How could the memory immune cells that are driving allergies be identified and eliminated without irreparable harm to the organism?
The idea is that the allergen was wrongfully identified as a pathogen and memory cells were formed in the process. Could removing these memory cells in the absence of the allergen reset the mistake? The next time the allergen is encountered there would be no memory of it. This would be a new chance for the immune system to correctly consider it benign.
immunologyallergies
2
Creative contributions

The proposed procedure to make the Trojan horse idea work

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jnikola
jnikola Dec 07, 2022
This idea is inspired by Darko Savic's contribution and expanded based on the knowledge described here.
Finding cells
The first problem is definitely how to find the cells responsible for the allergies. If cells (B cells) can be found by the proposed trojan-horse system (it is important to make the procedure extremely safe for the patient), we could pull them down by antibodies mounted on silica beads. The suspension of cells could be filtered so that only these cells are extracted. These cells could then be eliminated.
Eliminating
As described in this contribution the second problem of eliminating cells is already partially solved. Since we would extract only the B cells expressing specific antigens, we could condition them with immunochemotherapy or simply not transplant them back into the patient. This idea is just a proposal that needs to be further examined.
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Use the allergen as a trojan horse to lure the responsible memory lymphocytes

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Darko Savic
Darko Savic Oct 14, 2021
Use the allergen as a trojan horse to lure the responsible memory lymphocytes. Attach something to the allergen that will kill the lymphocyte as it gets activated.
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Michaela D
Michaela D3 years ago
This idea is indeed valid and has indeed been expressed. Basic cells that are involved in allergies are B cells that produce antibodies (IgE antibodies). The proposal is to give patients antigen fragments that carry cytotoxic drugs to these allergen-specific B-cells . I am not sure how much this has been developed, though.
The most popular approach is to target the IgE antibodies with other antibodies that would eliminate them. Research on targeting the B cells has been done, as well . There is even an antibody-drug for medium-to-severe cases that has been approved by FDA (omalizumab) for allergic asthma. However, in this case, only free IgE is targeted and not the memory B-cells.
All in all, this approach is there but no good drugs have been developed!

[1]M. A. Firer. 2014. “Might Selective B-Cell Depletion Have a Place in Targeted Allergy Therapy?” Journal of Hematology Research 1(1):11–15. doi: 10.12974/2312-5411.2014.01.01.2.

[2]Nyborg, A., Zacco, A., Ettinger, R. et al. Development of an antibody that neutralizes soluble IgE and eliminates IgE expressing B cells. Cell Mol Immunol 13, 391–400 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/cmi.2015.19

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General comments

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Shubhankar Kulkarni
Shubhankar Kulkarni3 years ago
This might work but may need additional complementary molecules. Removing the immune cells responsible for allergies will lead to more production of such immune cells since the trigger for the production of these immune cells will still exist. Additional components may be needed to eliminate the trigger itself.
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Darko Savic
Darko Savic3 years ago
Shubhankar Kulkarni The idea was that the allergen was wrongfully identified as a pathogen and memory cells were formed in the process. I'm hoping that removing these memory cells in the absence of the allergen could reset the mistake. The next time the allergen is encountered there would be no memory of it. This would be a new chance for the immune system to correctly consider it benign.
Please leave the feedback on this idea