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In one of the latest efforts, Nagler’s team first confirmed that mice given antibiotics early in life were far more susceptible to peanut sensitization, a model of human peanut allergy. Then, they introduced a solution containing Clostridia, a common class of bacteria that’s naturally found in the mammalian gut, into the rodents’ mouths and stomachs. The animals’ food allergen sensitization disappeared, the team reports online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. When the scientists instead introduced another common kind of healthy bacteria, called Bacteroides, into similarly allergy-prone mice, they didn’t see the same effect. Studying the rodents more carefully, the researchers determined that Clostridia were having a surprising effect on the mouse gut: Acting through certain immune cells, the bacteria helped keep peanut proteins that can cause allergic reactions out of the bloodstream. “The bacteria are maintaining the integrity of the [intestinal] barrier,” Nagler says.

The research “opens up new territory,” Blaser says. It “extends the frontier of how the microbiome is involved” in immune responses and the roles played by specific bacteria. (Blaser’s group reported earlier this month in Cell that giving mice penicillin soon after birth changed their gut microbiome and made them much more likely to be obese as adults.) Nagler and her university have filed for a patent application on the new findings. The ultimate goal is to “interrupt [the allergy] process by manipulating the microbiota,” she says—a probiotic consisting of Clostridia could be a new allergy therapy, for example. Nagler knows of none on the market yet, and they would need testing in people before becoming a treatment of choice.