Finding contributors to allergy control

Abstract

Allergy House dust mites (HDMs) are a major source of aeroallergens that trigger human allergic responses, including asthma. To characterize the heterogeneity of human CD4+ T helper (TH) cell responses to HDM antigens, Seumois et al. stimulated blood T cells with HDM peptides and isolated the freshly activated T cells for single-cell RNA sequencing. One TH cell subset was more frequent in individuals without HDM allergy. These cells may function to restrain allergic T helper 2 (TH2) cell responses. Individuals with both HDM allergy and asthma were enriched for interleukin-9–producing TH2 cells. These findings provide a basis for designing more precise approaches to thwart pathogenic TH cell responses contributing to allergic asthma. Sci. Immunol. 5 , eaba6087 (2020).