BriefDefinitive Report CLONING AND SEQUENCING OF A cDNA EXPRESSING A RECOMBINANT HOUSE DUST MITE PROTEIN THAT BINDS HUMAN IgE AND CORRESPONDS TO AN IMPORTANT LOW MOLECULAR WEIGHT ALLERGEN

The cloning of recombinant proteins offers the possibility ofproducing, identifying, and manipulating the important IgE-binding determinants present on proteins that are responsible for provoking allergic diseases (1) . Proteins produced by mites of the genus Dermatophagoides are among the most important allergens affecting man in terms of both the frequency of the response by allergic subjects and the proportion oftotal IgE directed against these allergens (2, 3) . Ofthe 30 or more IgE-binding components demonstrated by our blotting studies (2, 4), at least six may be important allergens on the basis oftheir frequency and intensity of IgE binding on blots . Only two ofthese, DerpI and Derp II, have been extensively investigated . The cDNA coding for Derp I has recently been cloned and sequenced (5), although the recombinant protein did not bind IgE . A cDNA library expressing recombinant mite proteins has been screened using IgE antibodies from mite-allergic subjects . Techniques based on protein blotting have been used to identify the native source of an IgE-binding recombinant protein as the important mite allergen of molecular weight -14,000 .