Analysis of the IgE response to pure cows' milk and hens' egg proteins in eczematous patients

Abstract

This chapter presents a study analyzing IgE response to pure cows' milk and hens' egg proteins in eczematous patients. Patients whose serum gave a positive radioallergosorbent test (RAST) for whole cows' milk or hens' egg were selected from 46 patients with atopic eczema, and from 220 patients attending the general allergy clinic at Guy's Hospital. A total of 10 from the eczema group (20%) and 16 (7%) from the general allergy clinic were used in this study. The cows' milk proteins—bovine serum albumin (BSA) and gammaglobulin (BGG), β-lactoglobulin (β-lac), α-lactabulin (α-lac), and α-casein—and the hens' egg proteins—ovalbumin (OVA), ovomucoid (OVO)—were all purchased in the purest form available. The RAST and RAST inhibition of individual antigen-coated discs were performed. All sera were assayed at 1/10 dilution in horse serum or normal goat serum. It was observed that reduction of the concentration of cows' milk proteins used to coat the discs resulted in a fall in binding below 0.01 mg/ml.