ALLERGY REVIEW SERIES II - RECOMBINANT ALLERGENS

A great variety of recombinant plant, mite, mold, mammal, and insect a llergens have been expressed in heterologous hosts (e.g., Escherichia coli), their cDNA being used as a template. The number of biologically active recombinant allergens available for experimental, diagnostic, and therapeutic purposes is increasing tremendously. Recombinant aller gens have proven to be valuable tools to investigate T-cell and B-cell recognition of allergens as well as to study mechanisms of specific I gE regulation. The immunologic equivalence of many relevant recombinan t allergens with their natural counterparts has been demonstrated, and the three-dimensional structures of several recombinant allergens hav e been described recently. As a result of extensive cross-reactivities among the relevant allergens, it appears that the number of epitopes needed for diagnosis and specific immunotherapy is less diverse than o riginally anticipated and might be soon covered by recombinant molecul es. Recombinant allergens have been used for successful in vitro, as w ell as in vivo, allergy diagnosis, and work is in progress to produce recombinant allergen derivatives with reduced anaphylactic potential t o improve current forms of immunotherapy.