Rodent of the Week: A mouse with peanut allergy

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Food allergies are a significant problem. As many as 4% of Americans have them, and for reasons that are not well-understood, the rate of food allergies in children increased 18% over the last decade. That’s why the creation of a mouse model that better mimics the symptoms generated by food allergies was heralded this week in the January issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Paul Bryce of the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University has developed a new mouse model that more closely resembles the human symptoms of an allergic reaction to peanuts. The discovery is notable because animals are not normally allergic to food. Previous mouse models have been developed. But to create his model, Bryce fed mice a mixture of whole peanut extract and a toxin from the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus, called staphylococcal enterotoxin B, to simulate a human anaphylactic reaction to peanuts in mice. Anaphylaxis is the most severe allergic reaction. It causes blood vessels to dilate and fluid to leak from the bloodstream into tissues, sometimes resulting in death. Bryce’s studies with the mice showed they had severe allergic symptoms that closely resembled those found in human anaphylaxis, including swelling around the eyes and mouth, and problems breathing.

Peanut allergy causes up to 100 deaths a year in the United States.

-- Shari Roan

Correction: We originally wrote that the new model was the first mouse model of peanut allergies. There have been previous mouse models.