Unlocking the allergenic structure of the major house dust mite allergen Der f 2 by elimination of key intramolecular interactions

We report on the structural background of the remarkable reduction of aller genicity in engineering of the major house dust mite allergen Der f 2, Disr uption of intramolecular disulfide bonds in Der f 2 caused extensive confor mational change that was monitored by circular dichroism and gelfiltration analysis. The degree of conformational change correlated tr ell with the de gree of reductions in the capacity to bind IgE and to induce histamine rele ase from basophils in mite-allergic patients, Loosening the rigid tertiary structure by elimination of key intramolecular interactions is an effective strategy to reduce the number of high affinity IgE epitopes of allergen va ccine, (C) 2000 Federation of European Biochemical Societies. Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.