Atopy and immunodeficiencies: an intriguing overlap

Abstract

A few years after the identification of serum IgEs and their biological function, Burgio et al. published a paper entitled “Atopy as Minimal Immunodeficiency”. The authors wondered whether immunodeficiencies, “experimentum naturae” which had allowed basic progress in the knowledge of the functioning of the immune system, could also help in understanding the pathogenetic mechanisms that lead to the development of allergic diseases. A quick excursus on the allergic diseases that characterize many immunodeficiencies, or rather many inborn errors of immunity (IEI), demonstrate there are many points of convergence and overlap between atopy and immunological defects. Atopy itself is a more or less expressed form of immune system dysregulation and knowing which are the defective genes of the IEI in which atopic stigma are expressed will clarify how the allergic disease develops and, consequently, what the therapeutic measures can be targeted