Allergenicity of bovine casein. I: Specific lymphocyte proliferation and histamine accumulation in the mastocyte as a result of casein feeding in mice

Abstract

The effects of feeding cow milk casein (100 mg per day) on allergic responses in mice were studied by observing 3H‐thymidine incorporation in lymphocytes and histamine release from peritoneal mastocytes. Lymphocytes cultured in the presence of casein showed proliferative activities as early as two weeks feeding up to the eighth week. This activity was not in agreement with either the positive cutaneous test or the antigenic histamine liberation. The total histamine contents in the mastocytes were found to increase from 3.2±1.9 nmol per 105 cells for the control group to 7.1 ±3.2; 6.2 ± 1.3; 6.7 ± 1.6 after four, six and eight weeks of feeding, respectively. These findings leads us to postulate that there were lymphocyte activations and mastocyte histamine accumulations as the results of intestinal permeability to casein‐derived molecules.