Widely-Used Food Additive E319 Impairs Immune Responses to Influenza Infection

April 12, 2019  15:19

A common food additive called tert-butylhydroquinone (E319) suppresses the immune response the body mounts when fighting the flu; it also reduces the effectiveness of the flu vaccine through its effects on T cells, according to new research in mice by Michigan State University scientists.

“Our studies showed that mice on a tert-butylhydroquinone (tBHQ) diet had a weakened immune response to influenza infection,” said lead author Robert Freeborn, a PhD candidate at Michigan State University.

“In our mouse model, tBHQ suppressed the function of two types of T cells, helper and killer T cells. Ultimately, this led to more severe symptoms during a subsequent influenza infection.”

When a person is infected with influenza virus, helper T cells direct other parts of the immune system and help coordinate an appropriate response, while killer T cells hunt down infected cells and clear them from the body.

In the experiments, Freeborn and colleagues found mice eating a tBHQ-spiked diet were slower to activate both helper T cells and killer T cells, resulting in slower clearance of the virus.

“Right now, our leading hypothesis is that tBHQ causes these effects by upregulating some proteins which are known to suppress the immune system,” Freeborn said.

“Expression of these proteins, CTLA-4 and IL-10, was upregulated in two different models we use in the lab.”

“However, more work is necessary to determine if upregulation of these suppressive proteins is indeed causative for the effects of tBHQ during influenza infection.”

What’s more, when the mice were later re-infected with a different but related strain of influenza, those on the tBHQ diet had a longer illness and lost more weight.

“This suggests that tBHQ impaired the ‘memory response’ that typically primes the immune system to fight a second infection,” Freeborn said.

“Since the memory response is central to how vaccines work, impairment of this function could potentially reduce the efficacy of the flu vaccine.”

“T cells are involved in the immune response to a variety of diseases, so tBHQ could also play a role in other types of infectious diseases.”

The scientists presented their results April 7 at the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET) annual meeting during the 2019 Experimental Biology meeting in Orlando, FL.

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