Structure-immunogenicity relationships of natural proteins

Abstract

Latex allergy has received worldwide attention during the last decade; therefore, there have been many attempts to explain the increase in the incidence of allergy caused by latex proteins. Recently, substantial progress has been made in the expression, purification and molecular characterization of several rubber latex allergens; nevertheless, information on their tertiary structure is limited. The knowledge of their three-dimensional structure, from experimental methods, will simplify their identification and enhance the possibility to modify conformational epitopes, thus making them important tools in diagnosis of latex allergy as well as potential immunotherapy agents. We have determined two conformational epitopes in Hev b 6.02 and a glycoepitope in Hev b 2.