肥大细胞活化释放与I型过敏相关的介质。因此,肥大细胞活化的研究对于理解过敏反应至关重要,并开发控制它的方法。重要的是,已经鉴定了除过敏原-IgE-FcεRI之外还激活肥大细胞的另一种配体受体对(化合物48/80和MRGPRX2)。随着肥大细胞在组织中从造血干细胞成熟,它们的生理学和病理生理学很难研究。经常研究从干细胞培养的肥大细胞系和肥大细胞而不是组织肥大细胞。在对肥大细胞激活机制的描述方面已经取得了一些进展,限制肥大细胞活化的物质和肥大细胞表达的蛋白酶目录。嗜碱性粒细胞表达FcεRI,结合IgE并以与肥大细胞非常相似的方式响应过敏原交联。在最近的文学中,嗜碱性粒细胞被错误地描述为抗原呈递细胞;这在随后的许多出版物中引起了令人信服的争议。它们在生理和病理生理学中的功能尚不清楚,但它们经常被用来记录嗜碱性粒细胞激活试验中的过敏致敏。在记录嗜碱性粒细胞活化作为过敏诊断的二线测试的相关性方面取得了重大进展。嗜碱性粒细胞反应性和敏感性可能反映症状严重程度和过敏原阈值,用于记录和监测过敏。过敏性效应细胞的生理学和病理生理学仍然是研究的重要领域。
Mast cell activation releases the mediators associated with type I allergy. As such, the study of mast cell activation is critical for understanding the allergic reaction, and for developing methods to control it. Importantly, another ligand receptor pair (compound 48/80 and MRGPRX2) that activates mast cells in addition to allergen-IgE-FcεRI has been identified. As mast cells mature in tissue from hematopoietic stem cells, their physiology and pathophysiology is difficult to study. Mast cell lines and mast cells cultured from stem cells are often studied instead of tissue mast cells. There has been some progress in the description of the mechanism of the activation of mast cells, substances limiting mast cell activation and in the catalogue of proteases that mast cells express. Basophil granulocytes express FcεRI, bind IgE and respond to allergen crosslinking in a very similar fashion to mast cells. In the recent literature, basophils were mistakenly described as antigen-presenting cells; this has convincingly been disputed in a number of subsequent publications. Their function in physiology and pathophysiology is not known, but they are frequently used to document allergic sensitisation in the basophil activation test. Significant progress has been made in documenting the relevance of basophil activation as a second-line test in allergy diagnosis. Basophil reactivity and sensitivity may reflect symptom severity and allergen threshold, and are used to document and monitor allergy. The physiology and pathophysiology of allergic effector cells remain an important area of research.