Egg allergy was alleviated after baking and frying cooking by weakening Jagged2-Notch induced Th2 immunity in a mice model

Egg allergy is the second most common food allergy in the world. Current studies focus on the effects of food industrial processing on nutrient contents of egg, while there were few studies focusing the effects of cooking methods on allergenicity of egg. In this study, an egg-induced allergy BALB/c mouse model was used to explore the effect and mechanism of different cooking methods (boiling, steaming, baking, and frying) on the allergenicity of egg. Results showed compared with native egg protein group (NEPG), the levels of IgE, IgG 1 , histamine and IL-4 of mice in boiled egg protein group (BoEPG), steamed egg protein group (SEPG), baked egg protein group (BaEPG) and fried egg protein group (FEPG) were significantly decreased. Moreover, the clinical symptoms (body temperature drop, symptoms score) of mice were alleviated in BaEPG and FEPG. Furthermore, compared with NEPG, the expression of Jagged2 and GATA-3 in jejunum and spleen were significantly reduced of mice in BaEPG and FEPG but Jagged1 and T-bet showed no significant difference. The results demonstrated that the four cooking methods alleviated egg allergy to varying degrees in mice, and baking and frying were most effective. The effect was related to weakening Jagged2-Notch induced Th2 immunity in mice.