# Allergen T cell epitopes and phenotypes during peanut immunotherapy

> **NIH NIH U19** · BENAROYA RESEARCH INST AT VIRGINIA MASON · 2020 · $324,621

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY – Project 2
We aim to explore the alterations that arise on peanut epitope-specific T-cell repertoires in response
to immunotherapy. This work will take advantage of a cohort of food allergy patients, available to this
project, that display a wide variety of responses to food challenge and to interventional therapy.
These include food allergic patients who differ in clinical manifestation at baseline, patient non-
responder to therapy, patients who experience adverse reactions during therapy, patients that loss
peanut sensitization during therapy but not at the end of an avoidance period and patient that gain
long term tolerance to peanut as a result of immunotherapy. This investigation will be performed in
the context of an Immune Tolerance Network funded Peanut Oral Immunotherapy trial and in the
context of an Aravax funded peanut specific peptide immunotherapy trial. Both effector T cells and
regulatory T cells will be examined and we will capitalize on epitope discovery from project 1 to probe
peanut allergen epitope specific T cells. The proposed work will include the use of state-of art
technologies such as pMHCII tetramer staining and dual CD154/CD137 assay allowing determination
of the contribution of allergen epitope-specific T cells to the global peanut specific T cell responses.
We will also explore the alterations that arise on TCR repertoire and transcriptional phenotype of
peanut-specific T cells during clinical intervention. These information are pertinent for determining
suitable target to guide the design of optimal allergy vaccines. We will finally determine the extent to
which these T cell epitopes can be used as biomarker predicting which patients are most likely to
benefit from these therapeutic interventions, which immune mechanisms are involved and screen out
those candidates in whom immunotherapy may lead to unnecessary risks.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9840448
- **Project number:** 5U19AI135817-03
- **Recipient organization:** BENAROYA RESEARCH INST AT VIRGINIA MASON
- **Principal Investigator:** Erik Wambre
- **Activity code:** U19 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $324,621
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** — → —

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9840448

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9840448, Allergen T cell epitopes and phenotypes during peanut immunotherapy (5U19AI135817-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-21 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9840448. Licensed CC0.

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