TH2 adjuvants: Implications for food allergy

A persistent question for immunologists studying allergic disease has been to define the characteristics of a molecule that make it allergenic. There has been substantial progress elucidating mechanisms of innate priming of TH2 immunity in the past several years. These accumulating data demonstrate that TH2 immunity is actively induced by an array of molecules, many of which were first discovered in the context of antihelminthic immune responses. Similar intrinsic or associated activities are now known to account for the TH2 immunogenicity of some allergens, and may prove to play a role for many more. In this review, we discuss what has been discovered regarding molecules that induce innate immune activation and the pathways that promote TH2-polarized immune responses generally, and specifically what role these mechanisms may play in food allergy from models of food allergy and the study of TH2 gastrointestinal adjuvants.