Introductory lecture: Pollen food allergy syndrome

The term pollen-food allergy syndrome (PFAS) defines a series of clinical symptoms appearing shortly after the ingestion of plant-derived foods in subjects with pollen allergy. The patients with PFAS are primarily allergic to pollen and subsequently react to food allergens as a consequence of the homology between pollen and plantfood proteins. The two highly conserved proteins responsible for the large majority of cases of pollen-food allergy syndrome are the pathogenesis-related proteins group 10 (PR-10), including the major birch pollen allergen Bet v 1 and homologous proteins in different fruits and vegetables, and profilin, a plant pan-allergen present in cell structure of all the vegetable kingdom. Although it has been generally thought that the clinical expression of the pollen food-allergy syndrome is uniquely the socalled “oral allergy syndrome”, recent reports suggest that the ingestion of particular foods may be associated with systemic symptoms as well. Recombinant PR-10 proteins and recombinant profilins from different sources are presently available for diagnostic purposes. The presentation will review the available data about the clinical expression, diagnosis, and therapy of the pollenfood allergy syndrome.