Remote allergen exposure elicits eosinophil infiltration into allergen nonexposed mucosal organs and primes for allergic inflammation.

Abstract

The natural history of allergic diseases suggests bidirectional and progressive relationships between allergic disorders of the skin, lung and gut indicative of mucosal organ cross-talk. However, impacts of local allergic inflammation on the cellular landscape of remote mucosal organs along the skin:lung:gut axis are not yet known. Eosinophils are tissue-dwelling innate immune leukocytes associated with allergic diseases. Emerging data suggest heterogeneous phenotypes of tissue-dwelling eosinophils contribute to multifaceted roles that favor homeostasis or disease. This study investigated the impact of acute local allergen exposure on the frequency and phenotype of tissue eosinophils within remote mucosal organs. Our findings demonstrate allergen challenge to skin, lung or gut elicited not only local eosinophilic inflammation, but also increased the number and frequency of eosinophils within remote, allergen non-exposed lung and intestine. Remote allergen-elicited lung eosinophils exhibited an inflammatory phenotype and their presence associated with enhanced susceptibility to airway inflammation induced upon subsequent inhalation of a different allergen. These data demonstrate, for the first time, a direct effect of acute allergic inflammation on the phenotype and frequency of tissue eosinophils within antigen non-exposed remote mucosal tissues associated with remote organ priming for allergic inflammation.