Molecular allergology approach to allergic diseases in the paediatric age.

Identification, characterization, and purification of allergens are essential for the structural and immunologic studies needed to understand how these molecules induce specific IgE antibody production by the human immune system. Advances in molecular biology techniques have led to the production of recombinant allergens having constant properties, allowing detection of specific IgE directed against different molecular components of an allergenic source. Presence of homologous allergens in different sources is the reason for cross-reaction.

Allergen databases: current status and perspectives.

An increasing number of studies on allergenic molecules have been published during the past 20 years, and the number of proteins reported as allergens is close to 1500 (http://www.allergome.org).

Evaluation by double-blind placebo-controlled oral challenge of the clinical relevance of IgE antibodies against plant glycans.

Background: The clinical relevance of immunoglobulin E (IgE) to plant glycans is a longstanding debate. We sought to evaluate their clinical reactivity using the human glycoprotein lactoferrin expressed in rice.

Methods: Allergic patients with IgE antibodies against plant glycans were analyzed for the presence of IgE against rice-produced lactoferrin.

When does a protein become an allergen? Searching for a dynamic definition based on most advanced technology tools.

Since the early beginning of allergology as a science considerable efforts have been made by clinicians and researchers to identify and characterize allergic triggers as raw allergenic materials, allergenic sources and tissues, and more recently basic allergenic structures defined as molecules. The last 15-20 years have witnessed many centres focusing on the identification and characterization of allergenic molecules leading to an expanding wealth of knowledge. The need to organize this information leads to the most important question 'when does a protein become an allergen?' In this article, I try to address this question by reviewing a few basic concepts of the immunology of IgE-mediated diseases, reporting on the current diagnostic and epidemiological tools used for allergic disease studies and discussing the usefulness of novel biotechnology tools (i.

Allergenic extracts for specific immunotherapy: to mix or not to mix?

Immunotherapy for allergic diseases give rise to questions about when a decision must be taken to define the number of extracts to be used in a single treatment. This represents a long-lasting matter of debate between American and European allergists, which seems to be without real solution. Through the use of extract-based versus molecule-based diagnostic approaches we suggest a possible solution to this controversial issue.