Conclusion
Food allergy is an increasing problem throughout the world. There remain
signficant unanswered questions about its pathogenesis. ILCs provide a
bridge between native and adaptive immunity thereby having a crucial
role in immunity. There is a growing awareness about the plasticity of
ILCs in different inflammatory conditions. It is likely that future
studies will provide more insights to understanding how the skin and
gastrointestinal mucosal immune systems interact, both in homeostasis
and in the progression to food allergy. In particular, it will be
important to identify physiologically relevant stimuli that directly or
indirectly activate ILC2s in skin, which may lead to epicutaneous
sensitization. A strong association of AD and food allergy is found
stronger in infancy than childhood, despite epicutaneous sensitization
being more evident in later life.142 Mechanisms of
epicutaneous sensitization during infancy and the role of ILCs have yet
be identified. Understanding the contribution of ILCs to inflammatory
processes and regulatory mechanisms in food allergy may help to develop
novel therapeutics that target ILCs to treat food allergy and to induce
immune tolerance.