Plasma IL-25 is elevated in a subgroup of patients with clinical reactivity to peanut

Brief communication

Joost A Aalberse, Anders O van Thuijl, Yolanda Meijer, Wilco de Jager, Tjitske van der Palen-Merkus, Aline B Sprikkelman, Maarten O Hoekstra, Berent J Prakken and Femke vanWijk

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Clinical and Translational Allergy 2013, 3:40  doi:10.1186/2045-7022-3-40

Published: 2 December 2013

Abstract (provisional)

Background

One of the IL-17 family members, IL-25, has been implicated with the initiation and amplification of Th2 responses in animal models and has been associated with airway hyper-reactivity. The involvement of IL-25 and also IL-17 in food allergic disease remains to be investigated.

Findings: In this study thirty children suspected of peanut allergic disease underwent a double-blind placebo controlled food challenge (DBPCFC) and IL-25 and IL-17 plasma levels were determined before challenge. IL-25 was highly elevated only in subgroup of children with a positive DBPCFC outcome. Plasma IL-25 was absent in children with a negative DBPCFC outcome and in healthy controls.

Conclusions

This study shows that IL-25, an IL-17 family member, is highly elevated only in children with a clinical response to peanut. This suggests a role for IL-25 in the pathogenesis of peanut allergy and elevated plasma IL-25 may be a sign of a severe atopic phenotype.

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