Purification of egg-white allergens.

Purification procedures for the four egg-white proteins ovomucoid, ovotransferrin, ovalbumin, and lysozyme are presented with reference to mechanistic studies at epitope levels of allergic reactions to these proteins. The applied procedures resulted in four preparations containing less than 0.1% contaminating proteins each. The purified protein preparations were characterized by SDS-PAGE and by crossed immunoelectrophoresis with polyclonal antibodies raised against an egg-white extract or the purified proteins. The necessity of these well-characterized proteins in studies on allergic reactions was shown by testing human sera in immunoblots of lysozyme, and by immunoblots of ovomucoid probing with antibodies against the proteins.