Novel Peripheral Blood Allergen Stimulation Test for Non-IgE-mediated Gastrointestinal Food Allergies in Neonates and Infants.

The lymphocyte stimulation test (LST) helps with the diagnosis of non-IgE-mediated gastrointestinal food allergies. However, The LST requires large volumes of fresh peripheral blood and long culture times.The purpose of this study was to develop a novel LST. we obtained whole blood from patients with non-IgE-GI-FAs to cow’s milk and disease control children. And, we stimulated it with α-casein and Pmix, which is a mixture of four milk protein components (α-casein, κ-casein, α-lactalbumin, or β-lactoglobulin for 24 hours. Then we analyzed genome-wide gene expression using microarray and selected up- or down-regulated genes Nine putative marker genes, including those known to be involved in allergic inflammation, such as IL2RA, CCL17 and CISH were specific to patient group after stimulation with α-casein. On the other hand, 232 marker genes were specific to patient group after stimulation with Pmix. Whole blood samples from non-IgE-mediated gastrointestinal food allergie patients and disease control children were stimulated with α-casein and Pmix for 24 hours and subjected to genome-wide gene expression profiling analysis using microarray chips.