Methods We evaluated subjects from Southern Romania, a Central European region with temperate continental climate with submediterranean and humid subtropical influences, where sensitization to Betulaceae pollen is less important in pollinosis compared with that to grass or weed pollen. We selected adult patients from the region of sylvosteppe with low density forests dominated by deciduous spec...

BACKGROUND Current diagnostics for allergies, such as skin prick and radioallergosorbent tests, do not allow for inexpensive, high-throughput screening of patients. Additionally, extracts used in these methods are made from washed pollen that lacks pollen surface materials that may contain allergens. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We sought to develop a high-throughput assay to rapidly measur...

BACKGROUND Grass pollen allergens are a major cause of allergic respiratory disease but traditionally prescribing practice for grass pollen allergen-specific immunotherapy has favoured pollen extracts of temperate grasses. Here we aim to compare allergy to subtropical and temperate grass pollens in patients with allergic rhinitis from a subtropical region of Australia. METHODS Sensitization t...

BACKGROUND Birch pollen is the major allergen in pollinosis in northern Japan. IgE reactivity to individual birch pollen allergens has been shown to differ between populations of birch pollen-allergic patients living in different countries. In this study, we examined the IgE profiles to recombinant birch pollen allergens in birch-sensitive patients living in Sapporo. METHODS This study used t...

BACKGROUND The GA2LEN chamber has been developed as a novel mobile allergen exposure chamber (AEC) allowing standardized multicenter trials in allergy. Hitherto, subjective nasal symptom scores have been the most often used outcome parameter, but in standardized modern trials objective parameters are preferred. Despite its practicability, the objective parameter peak nasal inspiratory flow (PNI...

background: allergy is a clinical disorder affecting the human population with wide geographical distribution. platanus orientalis (p. orientalis) trees are planted in many countries and their pollen causes allergic reactions. cyclophilin has recently been identified as one of the most important allergens of p. orientalis pollen. we aimed to clone and purify this allergen in escherichia coli fo...

Epicutaneous allergen-specific immunotherapy (EPIT) is proposed as an alternative route for allergen-specific immunotherapy (AIT). The induction of allergen-specific blocking IgG antibodies represents an important mechanism underlying AIT, but has not been investigated for EPIT. Here, we compared the induction of allergen-specific blocking IgG in outbred guinea pigs which had been immunized wit...

BACKGROUND Bronchial challenge with allergen causes a specific form of airways inflammation consisting of an influx of neutrophils, eosinophils, and T cells. Because the relevance of the challenge model to clinical asthma is uncertain, the cellular changes that occur in the lungs of asthmatic subjects during natural seasonal allergen exposure were investigated. METHODS Seventeen grass pollen ...

molecular evidence on the heterogeneity present in the ole e 1 allergen of the olive pollen is emerging. such polymorphism is dependent on the cultivar origin of pollen, which also determines wide differences in the expression of this protein. determination of biochemical and molecular characteristics of ole e 1 pollen allergen in two iranian olive cultivars, namely 'rowghani' and 'zard' is nec...

BACKGROUND Allergen immunotherapy (AIT) is the practice of administering gradually increasing quantities of an allergen extract to an allergic subject to ameliorate the symptoms associated with the subsequent exposure to the causative allergen. It is the only treatment that may alter the natural course of allergic diseases. According to AIT guidelines and summary of product characteristics (SmP...