For the one in three Americans with allergies, being proactive is the name of the game — extra caution when trying new foods, avoiding certain furry friends and popping Zyrtec or Allegra every spring when the world is covered in pollen.
Though if you ask biochemist Maksymilian Chruszcz about allergies, he’ll tell you we can do better. At Michigan State University’s College of Natural Science, Chruszcz leads one of the few labs in the country studying allergies through the unique proteins that provoke them.
By revealing the molecular structures of specific allergens found in everything from pollen to kiwis to dust mites, his team is achieving breakthroughs that could mean better diagnoses and first-ever medical treatments.
In this Ask the Expert, Chruszcz explains how and why allergies occur and the different ways his group is working to alleviate our allergy miseries.
What’s the big question your lab is trying to answer when it comes to allergies?
Our lab is interested in finding out why, out of the many thousands of molecules we encounter every day, just a few provoke allergic reactions in certain people. To do this, we study allergens as proteins — molecules with unique shapes, sizes and chemical characteristics.
What happens in our bodies during an allergic reaction?
First, you’re exposed to a harmless allergen like tree pollen that your immune system sees as a threat. In response, it creates powerful antibodies that bind to the allergen called immunoglobin E, or IgE, which are usually produced to fight parasitic infections.
After becoming ‘sensitized’ to a particular allergen, the next time IgE encounter it, they’ll kickstart a cellular process that unleashes defensive, inflammatory chemicals. These chemicals cause allergic reactions.
When people experience allergy symptoms, they’ll take medications to help. Why is this just a temporary fix, and how is your lab’s approach different?
When it comes to allergies, we’re often told, ‘Take an antihistamine,’ but that’s not solving anything, as it only suppresses the symptoms. Instead, we’d like to treat the disease itself and do so in better, targeted ways.
Current immunotherapy treatments for allergies help desensitize our bodies to allergens over time. This process needs to be carefully controlled and administered by a physician because these allergens can still cause dangerous reactions like anaphylaxis.
In our lab, we want to develop what are called hypoallergens. These are allergens with reduced IgE binding. When someone is treated with hypoallergens, they won’t experience a strong reaction, and at the same time, their immune system will start producing other protective antibodies. This is how you can build a tolerance to a particular allergen over time with less serious side effects.
How can this research help someone get a more accurate allergy diagnosis?
Using tools like X-ray crystallography, we can discover very detailed interactions between molecules. We can not only tell a particular person that they’re sensitized to peanuts, but what two or three proteins are causing their condition.
Going even further, we can find out the exact fragments of an allergen that are responsible for triggering an allergic reaction. In principle, we can create an antibody cocktail to provide personalized treatment.
Why is pollen the culprit behind so many people’s food allergies?
Many of us might not realize that our particular food allergy comes from being first sensitized to pollen. This is because of a widespread phenomenon called Pollen Food Allergy Syndrome.
Through what’s known as cross reactivity, the antibodies produced to recognize one specific allergen will cause an allergic reaction after encountering a similar-looking molecule.
Unfortunately for us, pollen proteins are very close to those found in raw fruits and vegetables. That means someone who has a nasty pollen allergy can one day have a similar reaction when eating carrots, apples or celery.
What are some other surprising instances of cross-reactivity?
You’ll find many strange connections. For instance, someone sensitized to fish can be allergic to crocodile meat, and someone sensitized to dust mites might find themselves allergic to shellfish. There’s even cross-reactivity between cat allergens and pork. You don’t see a connection right away, but from the perspective of the protein family, there’s always a link with sequence or structure.
As one of the few labs in the world working on this particular subject, what makes allergy research most exciting for you and your team?
I love working on allergens because, many times, we have no clue what the function of a particular protein is in the source organism. There’s also no shortage of unknown proteins to identify.
Today, we have access to food from completely different parts of the world and are even crossing paths with invasive plant species and exotic pets. This means our bodies are exposed to totally unfamiliar proteins, so we’ll have our work cut out for us for a long time.
