STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION OF SEVERAL ALLERGE NIC ANIMAL AND PLANT-PROTEINS

The authors try to provide a number of theoretical and experimental ar guments in favour of the hypothesis of a possible relationship between the structure, function and allergenicity of certain animal or plant proteins. The transport function or enzymatic activity of certain prot eins can be assumed to have an effect on the membrane of immunological ly competent cells which could endow them with a greater capacity to p referentially select the profiles of Th2 lymphocytes, inducers of the IgE response. The distinction between immunogenicity and allergenicity is currently exclusively based on the genetic capacity of the recipie nt to produce IgE and the environmental conditions which allow this Ig E response. At the level molecular, structural homologies between vari ous allergenic molecules do not inevitably induce crossed antigenicity .