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Consumption of Pinto and Tendergreen bean seed meals led to the highest number of eosinophils in the airway with increased eosinophil recruitment in heat-treated compared to raw seed meal fed mice. In contrast, mice consuming raw transgenic peas had higher airway eosinophils compared to heat-treated peas. Tendergreen bean fed mice generated more extensive allergic lung inflammation than all the other seed meals. Both transgenic aAI and non-transgenic peas generated a severe inflammatory response in lung compared to Pinto bean, transgenic and nGM-cowpeas and chickpeas. We did not expect the responses to be higher in mice consuming heat-treated seed meals due to the denaturation of the proteins. However, we observed that some groups had higher eosinophilia in heat-treated compared to raw seed meals. We speculate that there are other components in the seeds that may affect the overall immune response to the seed meals and that these are HOE-239 influenced differentially during heat treatment. Although adjuvant studies are not routinely used in the assessment of GMOs, the effect of aAI peas on a non-crossreactive protein, OVA was previously tested and shown to enhance OVAspecific immunogenicity. To test the effect of aAI pea feeding on immune responses to OVA, we used a different approach in models of OVA-induced allergic disease. We fed mice with seed meals during OVA sensitization and lung challenge for the onset of allergic disease or fed mice before re-challenging with aerosolized OVA to induce disease exacerbation. OVA immunization and aerosol challenge generates an intense allergic response characterized by eosinophilic airway and lung inflammation, mucus SB-431542 hypersecretion and OVA-specific antibody responses. After recuperation, chronic lung inflammatory infiltrates remain and respond to re-exposure to OVA leading to disease exacerbation for the lifetime of the mouse. To test the adjuvant effect of aAI peas, we gavaged mice twice weekly for 4 consecutive weeks with the transgenic aAI and nGM peas, Tendergreen beans or PBS before disease initiation and exacerbation. mice had healthy lungs and no aAI immune responses. PBS control mice, however, illustrate the response to OVA with approximately 30 and 40 eosinophils within the airways for disease initiation and exacerbation, respectively, while neither pea nor bean feeding influenced OVA-induced airway inflammation at either phase of disease. Consumption of peas and beans did not affect the OVA-specific eosinophilic inflammation, mucus secretion or severity of lung inflammation seen on Luna-, H&E-and PAS-stained tissue sections.

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Author: calcimimeticagent