Ar101 Oral Desensitization Therapy for Peanut Allergy Induces Dynamic Changes in Peanut-Specific Immune Responses

Peanut allergy is increasingly prevalent among children in the United States and other industrialized countries and is now estimated to affect approximately 2% of children. While there are currently no approved treatment options, peanut allergy usually persists into adulthood, can be life-threatening, and accounts for most deaths related to food allergy. Here, we track peanut-reactive CD4+ T effector (pTeff) cells using the CD154 up-regulation assay. We found that CRTH2+ pTeff cells and CCR6+ pTeff cells represent two mutually exclusive, non-overlapping cellular and molecular entities involved in food allergic diseases. 25 T-cell samples were profiled using RNA-seq. Cells were stimulated with peanut peptides overnight and ~100 peanut-reactive cells were sorted for RNA-sequencing. Cells were sorted from the total CD154+ compartment (6 samples), the CD154+/CRTH2+ compartment (5 samples), or the CD154+/CCR6+ compartment (14 samples).