Enteric infection acts as an adjuvant for the response to a model food antigen

Oral administration of soluble protein Ags typically induces Ag-specific systemic nonresponsiveness. However, we have found that feeding a model food protein, OVA, to helminth-infected mice primes for a systemic OVA-specific Th2 response. In this report we show that, in addition to creating a Th2-priming cytokine environment, helminth infection up-regulates costimulatory molecule expression on mucosal, but not peripheral, APCs. To examine the consequences of mucosal infection for the T cell response to orally administered Ag, we adoptively transferred transgenic, OVA-specific, T cells into normal mice. We found that helminth infection enhances the expansion and survival of transgenic T cells induced by Ag feeding. Transfer of 5,6-carboxyfluorescein diacetate succinimidyl ester-labeled donor cells showed that T cell proliferation in response to Ag feeding takes place primarily in the mesenteric lymph nodes. Upon subsequent peripheral exposure to Ag in adjuvant, the proliferative capacity of the transferred transgenic T cells was reduced in noninfected mice that had been fed OVA. Helminth infection abrogated this reduction in proliferative capacity. Our data suggests that enteric infection can act as an adjuvant for the response to dietary Ags and has implications for allergic responses to food and the efficacy of oral vaccination.