Occupational airborne contact urticaria, anaphylaxis and asthma in farmers and agronomists due to Bruchus pisorum.

BACKGROUND: Occupational contact urticaria due to inhalation of legume pest allergens has rarely been described. OBJECTIVE: To determine the cause of an outbreak of airborne contact urticaria, asthma, and anaphylaxis in farmers and agronomists studying the disinsectization of dried peas. Peas were treated with aluminum phosphide (EPA). METHODS: Extracts prepared from Bruchus lentis and Bruchus pisorum bodies and from healthy legumes, EPA-treated legumes, and infested legumes, were used for in vivo tests (skin prick testing, oral, and specific bronchial challenge for the diagnosis of asthma and anaphylaxis) in affected patients and in five control patients with severe legume hypersensitivity. Open application, patch testing with the most common legume insecticides, molecular analysis, and IgE immunoblotting were undertaken. RESULTS: We found positive responses (prick, provocation, immune detection) to parasitic pea extracts and B. pisorum. A 25 kDa band was detected in the western blot of all patients who worked with infested EPA-treated peas. Bands from B. pisorum extract were detected in all patients. No responses to pea allergens were found in any patient, unlike in legume allergy controls. Oral provocation tests were negative. CONCLUSION: B. pisorum is a cause of contact urticaria and may cause occupational hives, anaphylaxis, and asthma. The allergen may enter by inhalation or puncture of setae released by B. pisorum.

Deep Super-SAGE transcriptomic analysis of cold acclimation in lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.).

BACKGROUND: Frost is one of the main abiotic stresses limiting plant distribution and crop production. To cope with the stress, plants evolved adaptations known as cold acclimation or chilling tolerance to maximize frost tolerance. Cold acclimation is a progressive acquisition of freezing tolerance by plants subjected to low non-freezing temperatures which subsequently allows them to survive exposure to frost. Lentil is a cool season grain legume that is challenged by winter frost in some areas of its cultivation. RESULTS: To better understand the genetic base of frost tolerance differential gene expression in response to cold acclimation was investigated. Recombinant inbred lines (RILs) from the cross Precoz x WA8649041 were first classified as cold tolerant or cold susceptible according to their response to temperatures between -3 to -15 °C. Then, RILs from both extremes of the response curve were cold acclimated and the leaf transcriptomes of two bulks each of eight frost tolerant and seven cold susceptible RILs were investigated by Deep Super-SAGE transcriptome profiling. Thus, four RNA bulks were analysed: the acclimated susceptible, the acclimated tolerant and the respective controls (non-acclimated susceptible and non-acclimated tolerant). Approximately 16.5 million 26 nucleotide long Super-SAGE tags were sequenced in the four sets (between ~3 and 5.4 millions). In total, 133,077 different unitags, each representing a particular transcript isoform, were identified in these four sets. Tags which showed a significantly different abundance in any of the bulks (fold change ≥4.0 and a significant p-value <0.001) were selected and used to identify the corresponding lentil gene sequence. Three hundred of such lentil sequences were identified. Most of their known homologs coded for glycine-rich, cold and drought-regulated proteins, dormancy-associated proteins, proline-rich proteins (PRPs) and other membrane proteins. These were generally but not exclusively over-expressed in the acclimated tolerant lines. CONCLUSIONS: This set of candidate genes implicated in the response to frost in lentil represents an useful base for deeper and more detailed investigations into this important agronomic trait in future.