PEANUT allergy may stem in part from the unusual way in which the proteins responsible are taken up by the gut.
A team led by Claudio Nicoletti at the Institute of Food Research in Norwich, UK, injected predigested roasted peanuts into the guts of anaesthetised mice. Between 15 and 30 minutes later they looked at the gut tissue under a microscope, using antibodies to reveal the presence of the allergenic proteins.
Unexpectedly, most of this protein ended up in specialised cells called M cells, which usually engulf bacteria and viruses and present their proteins directly to the immune system. “They…
