The Rothenberg CURED Lab offers information about news coverage and happenings involving members of our lab, the division, division programs (Drug Allergy Program, Food Allergy Program, Transition and Adult Immunodeficiency Program) and the Cincinnati Center for Eosinophilic Disorders (CCED).
Researchers identified that the prevalence of eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) was 1.4% among children with early-life atopic dermatitis (AD)—10 times higher than in the general population. The study found that all children who developed EoE had at least one additional allergic comorbidity besides AD. The risk of EoE was significantly higher for children with food sensitization or food allergy—and every child with EoE had at least one food allergy. We advocate for including EoE in the atopic march. This addition may increase clinical awareness and proactive screening for EoE in patients with early-life AD, particularly those who also develop food allergies early in life.
Read the Research Horizons blog post.
Presented by the CURED Foundation
What: CURED Presents National Eosinophilic Awareness Week LIVE!!
When: During National Eosinophilic Awareness Week (May 17–21)
Where: Online! You can join from the comfort of your home.
Cost: Completely FREE
Registration is required to get the link for these sessions. It only takes a minute to sign up!
Through leveraging shared atopic disease genetics via multi-trait analysis of genome-wide analysis studies (GWAS), we substantially expanded the landscape of eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) risk loci and improved EoE polygenic risk prediction, underscoring shared genetic mechanisms across atopic diseases.
We further provide a public resource (EGIDExpress) to continue advancing the field.
Research from the Rothenberg CURED Lab published in Nature Communications demonstrates that eosinophils residing in the bone marrow and the esophagus are readily distinguishable by the marked organization of their chromatin landscape, gene expression, and surface immunophenotype. Esophageal eosinophils are programmed by thousands of different molecular events, demonstrating the complexity of eosinophilic inflammation.
“The acquisition of tissue specialization at the molecular level is remarkably conserved across species according to mouse and human single-cell RNA sequencing findings. Mouse esophageal eosinophils have a distinct tissue-specific epigenome that is enriched for genes whose human counterparts are associated with allergic disease risk loci and eosinophilia. We have molecular evidence that esophageal eosinophils exist as at least two populations and that eosinophil tissue phenotypes are a result of local environmental cues,” says Jennifer Felton, PhD, the first author.
“Interestingly, the transcription factors involved in tissue specialization are largely distinct from those known to be involved in eosinophil development. We found that a complex of transcription factors, including AP-1 family members, are involved in acquiring the esophageal phenotype of eosinophils. Our reported findings and the genomic datasets now released to the public are facilitating a better understanding of eosinophils in the context of allergic and esophageal inflammation,” says Marc Rothenberg, MD, PhD, the senior author.
Marc E. Rothenberg, MD, PhD7/17/2025
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