Oral administration of ovalbumin after sensitization attenuates symptoms in a mouse model of food allergic enteropathy

Oral immunotherapy (OIT) is a promising treatment of food allergy. To administer an appropriate oral dose of an allergenic component as OIT to individuals sensitized with a food allergen may prevent inducing food allergic inflammation in them. So we attempted to establish a mouse model to evaluate efficacy for oral administration of food allergen after sensitization. In BALB/c mice sensitized by injecting ovalbumin (OVA) with alum twice, OVA was administered before inducing inflammation by feeding the mice with egg white (EW) diet. Severe inflammatory responses, such as enteropathy, weight loss, IL-4 production, and increase of IgE antibody levels, were suppressed by administration with 4 mg of OVA 7 times before feeding EW diet. OVA administration alone induced a slight Th2 response, but no symptoms. The current study demonstrated that severe food allergic enteropathy could be prevented by pre-administration with appropriate dose of OVA to sensitized mice.