New plant-origin food allergens.

Plant-origin foods, especially nuts and seeds, are the most important sources of food allergic reactions. An important characteristic is the quantitative and qualitative variability of their content in allergenic molecules, depending on plant growth, ripening, environmental stresses or industrial processing. In this review we will focus on newly identified allergens. Recent research have characterized and extensively studied their biochemistry, structure and immunological properties.

Characterization of the major allergen of plum as a lipid transfer protein.

BACKGROUND: Allergy to Prunoideae fruit (plum, peach, cherry and apricot) is one of the most frequent food allergies in southern Europe. All these fruits cross-react in vivo and in vitro, as they share their major allergen, a 9 kD lipid transfer protein (LTP). OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was the identification and molecular characterization of the major allergen of plum. METHODS: The IgE pattern of reactivity to plums was investigated by SDS-PAGE and immunoblotting with the sera of 23 patients. The identified major allergen was purified by HPLC, using a cationic-exchange column followed by gel-filtration. Further characterization was achieved by periodic-Schiff stain, isoelectrofocusing and N-terminal amino acid sequencing. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The major allergen of plum is a 9 kD lipid transfer protein, not glycosylated and with a basic character (pI>9), highly homologous to the major allergen of peach.