Dry roasting enhances peanut-induced allergic sensitization across mucosal and cutaneous routes in mice
The reasons for the disproportionate contribution of peanuts to prevalent and severe cases of food allergy in the Western world are unclear. Emerging statistics from East Asia generally match the overall common food allergies in the West, with the striking exception of peanuts, which are consumed equivalently in both regions. Differences in peanut preparation, roasted and dry roasted (DR) in the West versus raw, boiled, or fried in the East, have been proposed to contribute to this trend, and are supported by serological studies. Results obtained with other proteins have highlighted the potential immunomodulatory properties of advanced glycation end products (AGEs), which are extensively formed during the high-temperature dry roasting of peanuts. However, despite this information, the immunogenicity and allergenicity of raw compared with DR peanuts has not been characterized in vivo.