Gastrointestinal gd T cells reveal upregulated T-cell transcripts and signaling pathways during peanut oral immunotherapy

Oral immunotherapy (OIT) has been successful in desensitizing patients to offending food allergens, although identification of tissue-resident T cell subsets and cognate pathways leading to desensitization has been challenging. The T cells are a major T-cell subset of mucosal intraepithelial lymphocytes (IELs) and play a significant role in tissue homeostasis and repair. Studies in mouse models suggested a regulatory role of gd T cells in food allergy (FA). Also, peripheral gd T cells from patients analyzed over 24 weeks of peanut OIT were shown to undergo dynamic changes in expression profiles, implicating pathways involved in immune homeostasis. To our knowledge, the role of gd T cells in the intestinal mucosa of FA patients during immunotherapy has not been examined.  To this end, we investigated whether gd T cells in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract are modulated during peanut OIT. We hypothesized that GI-resident gd T cells in FA patients would increase during the course of peanut OIT and reveal transcripts and pathways relevant to the mechanisms of peanut desensitization.