A research team led by Professor Kazunari Kaneko and Lecturer Shohei Akagawa of the Department of Pediatrics, Kansai Medical University School of Medicine, discovered that among children with hen's egg allergy, those whose intestinal flora is rich in the butyric acid-producing bacterium Faecalibacterium have a higher rate of future remission of their hen's egg allergy.
In a previous study, this research team reported that the intestinal flora of children with egg allergies had fewer butyrate-producing bacteria compared to healthy children. Because butyrate promotes the differentiation and induction of "regulatory T cells," which have the function of suppressing excessive immune responses, it is thought that the amount of butyrate-producing bacteria in the intestinal flora may also affect food allergies.
In this study, we performed genetic testing on stool samples from 36 pediatric patients with egg allergy, and compared the intestinal bacterial flora of children whose egg allergy went into remission within the next two years (remission group: 2 children) and those whose egg allergy did not go into remission (non-remission group: 24 children).
As a result, it was found that the butyrate-producing bacterium Faecalibacterium was significantly more prevalent in the remission group. It is thought that the increase in regulatory T cells due to the butyrate produced by Faecalibacterium leads to early remission of hen's egg allergy. In fact, it was confirmed that children who achieved early remission of hen's egg allergy had a higher number of regulatory T cells in their blood.
This study showed that the abundance of Faecalibacterium in the intestinal flora may be able to predict whether or not a child with egg allergy will achieve future remission. On the other hand, it also suggested that a decrease in butyrate-producing bacteria may be involved in the onset, aggravation, and intractability of allergic diseases, which is expected to lead to the development of new methods for preventing and treating food allergies that target the correction of disorders of the intestinal flora.
Paper information:【Allergy】Faecalibacterium in the Gut Microbiota Predicts Tolerance Acquisition in Pediatric Hen's Egg Allergy
