Identification of the cysteine protease Amb a 11 as a novel major allergen from short ragweed.

Background: Allergy to pollen from short ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia) is a serious and expanding health problem in the United States and in Europe.

Objective: We sought to investigate the presence of undescribed allergens in ragweed pollen.

Methods: Ragweed pollen proteins were submitted to high-resolution gel electrophoresis and tested for IgE reactivity by using sera from 92 American or European donors with ragweed allergy.

Mass spectrometric investigation of molecular variability of grass pollen group 1 allergens.

Natural grass pollen allergens exhibit a wide variety of isoforms. Precise characterization of such microheterogeneity is essential to improve diagnosis and design appropriate immunotherapies. Moreover, standardization of allergen vaccine production is a prerequisite for product safety and efficiency.

High throughput screening of mixed-mode sorbents and optimisation using pre-packed lab-scale columns for the purification of the recombinant allergen rBet v 1a.

Mixed-mode chromatography was investigated for the purification of the recombinant allergen rBet v 1a expressed in Escherichia coli (E. coli) and used as an active principle for specific immunotherapy (SIT) treatment against birch pollen allergy. The screening of micro-volumes of three mixed-mode sorbents established that rBet v 1a could be captured without any pre-treatment of the crude feedstock on HEA or PPA HyperCel sorbents equilibrated in "physiological-like" conditions.

Production and proteomic characterization of pharmaceutical-grade Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus and Dermatophagoides farinae extracts for allergy vaccines.

Background: House dust mites (HDM) such as Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus and Dermatophagoides farinae represent a major cause of type 1 allergies worldwide. Hence large quantities of well-characterized HDM extracts are needed to prepare pharmaceutical-grade allergy vaccines. To this aim, the present study was undertaken to define optimal conditions for large-scale cultures.

Characterization of wild-type recombinant Bet v 1a as a candidate vaccine against birch pollen allergy.

Background: We describe the production in Escherichia coli as a recombinant protein of clinical grade wild-type Bet v 1a (rBet v 1a), to be used as a candidate vaccine against birch pollen allergy.

Methods: This recombinant protein was purified by hydrophobic interaction and ion exchange chromatography and characterized by SDS-PAGE, immunoprint and circular dichroism in parallel with natural Bet v 1 (nBet v 1) purified from a birch pollen extract. We also compared rBet v 1 and nBet v 1 for their capacity to induce histamine release from basophils and to stimulate T lymphocyte proliferation.