Neeharika Desam, Sunkar Swetha
Department of Bioinformatics, Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, 600119 India.
J Food Sci Technol. 2021 Jan;58(1):267-280. doi: 10.1007/s13197-020-04539-7. Epub 2020 May 26.
Certain substances referred to as allergens, induce hypersensitivity (allergic reactions) which normally are considered to be innocuous, are small in size and incite IgE response. This study was focused to predict the putative allergens from other Cucurbitaceae family members using computational approach by analyzing the already reported allergens of the same family. The four reported allergens Cuc m 1, Cuc m 2, Cuc m 3 and Citr I 2 of Cucurbitaceae family were obtained from International Union of Immunological Societies, in which three were from (Muskmelon) and one from (Watermelon) respectively. BlastP analysis reported 44 similar sequences to these allergens from other members of Cucurbitaceae family namely , and . The allergenicity of these sequences was predicted using AlgPred tool in which it revealed 26 protein sequences as putative allergens. These selected sequences were further analyzed for their physicochemical properties using ProtParam tool in which 13 sequences were found to satisfy the required parameters, and therefore further analyzed by AllerMatch™ and AllergenOnline tools to check the Codex Alimentarius rules for allergens. Finally, 13 sequences that were selected were structurally analyzed for similarity using PROMALS3D tool and phylogenetic relationship was established with the reported allergens using MEGA-X software. It was concluded that 13 sequences from Cucurbitaceae family belonging to different species of Pumpkin showed potential allergenicity based on the computational analysis that possibly can play a role in allergies and cross reactivity.
某些被称为过敏原的物质会引发超敏反应（过敏反应），这些物质通常被认为是无害的，体积较小，并能引发IgE反应。本研究旨在通过分析葫芦科其他成员已报道的过敏原，采用计算方法预测葫芦科其他成员的潜在过敏原。从国际免疫学会获得了葫芦科报道的四种过敏原Cuc m 1、Cuc m 2、Cuc m 3和Citr I 2，其中三种分别来自甜瓜，一种来自西瓜。BlastP分析报告了葫芦科其他成员（即南瓜、西葫芦和黄瓜）与这些过敏原相似的44个序列。使用AlgPred工具预测这些序列的致敏性，结果显示26个蛋白质序列为潜在过敏原。使用ProtParam工具进一步分析这些选定序列的理化性质，发现其中13个序列满足所需参数，因此通过AllerMatch™和AllergenOnline工具进一步分析，以检查食品法典委员会的过敏原规则。最后，使用PROMALS3D工具对选定的13个序列进行结构相似性分析，并使用MEGA-X软件与已报道的过敏原建立系统发育关系。得出的结论是，基于计算分析，葫芦科不同南瓜品种的13个序列显示出潜在的致敏性，可能在过敏和交叉反应中起作用。
