Department of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology, Jaffe Food Allergy Research Institute, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York 10029-6574, USA.
Curr Opin Allergy Clin Immunol. 2009 Aug;9(4):357-63. doi: 10.1097/ACI.0b013e32832d05ba.
Allergen-specific immunoglobulin E (IgE) antibodies play a central role in food allergic reactions. IgE epitope mapping of food allergens may provide information regarding patient's clinical history and contribute to food allergy diagnosis/prognosis. The goal of this article is to review recent developments in the methods for IgE epitope mapping and the role of IgE-binding epitopes in the characterization of food allergy.
Recent studies have suggested a potential role for sequential IgE-binding epitopes as biomarkers for characterizing various phenotypes of food allergy. Studies of allergens in milk, peanut, egg and wheat have shown a correlation between IgE sequential epitope diversity and patients' allergy severity or persistence. Several informative epitopes in milk allergens have been identified as candidate biomarkers to predict the development of tolerance to milk. However, limitations with current methods of IgE-binding epitope identification need to be addressed before they can be applied in the diagnosis/prognosis of food allergy.
IgE epitope mapping has the potential to become an additional tool for the diagnosis/prognosis of food allergy and lead to a better understanding of the pathogenesis and tolerance induction of food allergy.
过敏原特异性免疫球蛋白 E（IgE）抗体在食物过敏反应中起核心作用。食物过敏原的 IgE 表位图谱可能提供有关患者临床病史的信息，并有助于食物过敏的诊断/预后。本文的目的是综述 IgE 表位图谱方法的最新进展，以及 IgE 结合表位在食物过敏特征描述中的作用。
最近的研究表明，连续 IgE 结合表位作为生物标志物在描述食物过敏的各种表型方面具有潜在作用。对牛奶、花生、鸡蛋和小麦过敏原的研究表明，IgE 顺序表位多样性与患者过敏的严重程度或持续性之间存在相关性。在牛奶过敏原中已经鉴定出几个信息丰富的表位作为预测对牛奶产生耐受性的候选生物标志物。然而，在将 IgE 结合表位鉴定的当前方法应用于食物过敏的诊断/预后之前，需要解决其存在的局限性。
IgE 表位图谱有可能成为食物过敏诊断/预后的另一种工具，并有助于更好地理解食物过敏的发病机制和诱导耐受。
