Thetis cells, a class of immune cells first described in 2022, play an essential and previously unknown role in suppressing inflammatory responses to food, a new study finds.

A decade ago, a clinical trial in the U.K. famously showed that children who were exposed to peanuts in the early months of life had reduced risk of developing a peanut allergy compared with children ...

But for approximately 30 million Americans with food allergies—including 4 million children—immune cells mistakenly identify food as a threat, triggering potentially life-threatening reactions.

“By removing RORγt+ dendritic cells from the gut in mice, we broke tolerance to food allergens,” said Patrick Rodrigues, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar and co-first author on the study.

Immune cells are known to ignore or "tolerate" molecules found on the body's own healthy cells, for instance, as well as nonthreatening substances from outside the body like food.

This inspired our research team to investigate the role of mucosal mast cells in the pathogenesis of food allergy," says Nakano, sharing the motivation behind the present research.

Do you grab a fork and take a first bite of cake, or say no and walk away? Our motivation to eat is driven by a complex web of cells in the brain that use signals from within the body, as well as ...

Oral antigen uptake by gut lymph node antigen-presenting cells. (A) Representative flow cytometry showing gating of MHCII + antigen-presenting cell types in mesenteric lymph node (mLN) of Rorc ...