Cow's milk Sphingomyelin action on invariant natural killer T cells of not sensitized to cow's milk eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) patients

• Grant number: 16/20112-6
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: October 01, 2017
• End date: December 31, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Medicine - Medical Clinics
• Principal Investigator: Fabio Fernandes Morato Castro
• Grantee: Fabio Fernandes Morato Castro
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Medicina (FM). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Ariana Campos Yang ; Cristina Maria Kokron ; Keity Souza Santos ; Tomas Navarro Rodriguez

Abstract

Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EoE) is defined as a chronic inflammatory esophageal condition, immune-mediated or antigen-mediated, clinically characterized by esophageal dysfunction symptoms, and histologically by eosinophilic inflammatory infiltrate in the esophagus (e 15 eosinophils by high power field) that doesn't present improvement after 8 weeks' treatment with protons pump inhibitors (PPI). This is a TH2 immunological mediated condition in response to aeroallergens and food allergens, especially cow's milk. The literature has shown that the empiric cow's milk exclusion diet in the EoE patients, improves clinical manifestations and the eosinophilic infiltrate of the esophagus. The suggested hypothesis is that cow's milk stimulates invariant Natural Killer T cells (iNKT) through a glycoprotein name as sphingomyelin leading to an increase in the production of TH1 and TH2 cytokines, stimulating esophageal eosinophilic inflammation. Therefore, our paper, unique in the literature seeks to evaluate the cow's milk sphingomyelin action on iNKT lymphocytes in a group of eosinophilic esophagitis patients not sensitized to cow's milk, through lymphoproliferation assays of peripheral blood and esophageal tissue with different types of cow's milk. (AU)