Determining Food Allergens by Skin Sensitization in Mice

A food allergy is a chronic inflammatory disease against dietary antigens with high prevalence in industrialized countries. Because there is currently no cure for food allergies, avoiding the allergen is crucial for the prevention of an allergic reaction. Therefore, a further understanding of the pathogenesis and risk factors that augment the sensitization to food allergens is required. We have previously developed a food allergy mouse model using transdermal sensitization, which influences the susceptibility to food allergies. In this model, mice sensitized with partially hydrolyzed wheat protein (HWP) successfully resembled the major features of HWP-sensitized and wheat allergy-induced patients. In this article, we describe transdermal sensitization of food allergens and induction of immediate-type food allergies in mice. The methodology detailed here was mainly adapted from an original work by Adachi and colleagues with some modifications to the dressing methods to reduce stress. © 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.