Die Klassifizierung der pflanzlichen Nahrungsmittelallergene

Abstract

Proteins can be grouped into families and superfamilies based on their evolutionary relatedness. This relatedness manifests through the similarities of protein sequences (Pfam database) and structures (SCOP database). The AllFam database classifies all allergens by protein family membership. Allergens are found in only 2% of the more than 10,000 known protein families. Around 65% of all plant food allergens belong to only 4 superfamilies/families. One of them, the Bet v 1 superfamily, contains over 5,600 sequences from more than 1,200 species. Only few of these proteins are known as allergens.