Deciphering immune tolerance breakdown and restoration in food allergy

Silent epidemic of food allergies has raised the interest in the field of the generation, maintenance and breakdown of tolerance to food proteins, reflecting a pressing need to address the increasing global prevalence of this disease in industrialized countries. Food allergy arises from a failure of the immune system to either generate or maintain oral tolerance to harmless dietary proteins, leading to inappropriate inflammatory responses that led to the development of clinical symptoms ranging from mild discomfort to life-threatening anaphylaxis. Recent advances in the mechanisms underlying oral tolerance identify key events that play a pivotal role in this process including weaning reactions, early life immunity, mucosal regulation, epithelial barrier functions, and the intricate crosstalk between immune cells and environmental factors such as the microbiota. Despite advances in understanding how tolerance is established in the gut, key questions remain regarding the cellular and molecular breakdowns that promote allergic sensitization to foods and the dynamics of tolerance restoration across different ages and life stages.This Research Topic, “Deciphering Immune Tolerance Breakdown and Restoration in Food Allergy,” aims to advance our understanding of the mechanisms underlying the induction, maintenance, breakdown, and therapeutic restoration of oral tolerance to food proteins. The objectives of this Topic aim to: i) dissect cellular and molecular pathways that sustain immune homeostasis; ii) elucidate the effect of local microenvironment and regulatory immune responses on the prevention or mitigation of aberrant reactions to food; iii) identify novel targets and strategies for therapeutic intervention.This Topic particularly encourages the integration of multidisciplinary approaches to clarify not only the tolerogenic role played by innate immunity, intestinal epithelial cells and immune responses orchestrated by regulatory T cell subsets, but also the relevance of weaning, diet during the early life, and gut microbiota in this pathology. By bridging fundamental and translational research, this initiative seeks to foster innovative approaches for the prevention and treatment of food allergy. This Research Topic focuses on dissecting mechanisms underlying immunological and oral tolerance in food allergy, without restricting contributions to specific experimental models or exclusively human studies. We welcome submissions addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:• Mechanisms of oral tolerance induction and maintenance • Epithelial barrier integrity, dysfunction and crosstalk with immune cells • Innate and adaptive immune regulatory circuits controlling tolerance• Microbiota- and diet-driven influences on allergic immune programming • Advanced immune profiling approaches and therapeutic strategies aimed at restoring toleranceWe welcome original research articles, reviews, mini-reviews, perspectives, and hypothesis-driven studies that advance the mechanistic and/or translational understanding of immune tolerance in food allergy. Topic editors: Mónica Martínez-Blanco, Daniel Lozano-Ojalvo Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/80210/deciphering-immune-tolerance-breakdown-and-restoration-in-food-allergy