Sophie Troyer - Graduate Student

Childhood food allergy and atopic disease are becoming increasingly prevalent.  A significant goal in this field is to prevent food allergy development and halt the atopic march— the sequential progression of atopic diseases from atopic dermatitis (AD) and food allergy (FA) to asthma and allergic rhinitis. To do this, a greater understanding of the development of allergy in infancy is needed. Communities with farming lifestyles such as the Old Order Mennonite (OOM) community have decreased prevalence of allergic diseases and therefore serve as a model population for protection against allergic diseases. Studies have shown differences between farming and nonfarming communities in the innate immune system such as TLR expression that could explain an immune protective impact of farm exposure and may be due to the differing endotoxin levels and microbiota exposures. This suggests a role for trained immunity which posits that the innate immune system can be trained to respond differently upon re-exposure. To further explore this area of research, we will examine differences in innate immune response between the local OOM infant population and the Rochester urban/suburban infant population (ROC), which comprise our ZOOM1 cohort. To compare innate immune responses, we compare cytokine output of CBMCs and PBMCs after stimulation with various TLR agonists including LPS (TLR4 agonist, bacterial), and ssRNA40/LyoVec (TLR 7/8 agonist, viral). Thus far, we have optimized several stimulation conditions, including TLR agonist concentration, duration of stimulation, whether to rest cells before stimulation, and the use of PBMCs vs isolated CD14+ cells. These experiments will aid in understanding the role of innate immunity in farming lifestyle protection against allergic diseases. Additionally, we sought to examine differences between OOM and ROC in key innate immune marker gene expression for TLR 2, TLR 4, TLR 7, TLR 8, and CD14. Utilizing qPCR, we found trends for multiple TLRs between OOM and ROC allergic subgroups. These results suggest prenatal immune training that may be responsible for the farming lifestyle effect.

 Jan 22, 2026 @ 12:00 p.m.
 Medical Center | K307 (3-6408)