Abstract
BackgroundAllergy to cat epithelia is highly prevalent, being the major recommendation for allergy sufferers its avoidance. However, this is not always feasible. Allergen specific immunotherapy is therefore recommended for these patients. The use of polymerized allergen extracts, allergoids, would allow to achieve the high allergen doses suggested to be effective while maintaining safety.ResultsCat native extract and its depigmented allergoid were manufactured and biochemically and immunochemically characterized. Protein and chromatographic profiles showed significant modification of the depigmented allergoid with respect to its corresponding native extract. However, the presence of different allergens (Fel d 1, Fel d 2, Fel d 3, Fel d 4 and Fel d 7) was confirmed in the allergoid. Differences in IgE-binding capacity were observed as loss of biological potency and lower stability of the IgE-allergen complex on surface plasmon resonance. The allergoid induced production of IgG antibodies able to block IgE-binding to native extract. Finally, studies carried out with peripheral-blood mononuclear cells from cat allergic patients showed that the allergoid induced IFN-γ and IL-10 production similar to that induced by native extract.ConclusionsCat depigmented allergoid induced production of cytokines involved in a Th1 and Treg response, was able to induce production of IgG-antibodies that blocks IgE-binding to cat native extract, and showed reduced interaction with IgE, suggesting greater safety than native extract while maintaining in vitro efficacy.
Highlights
Allergy to cat epithelia is highly prevalent, being the major recommendation for allergy sufferers its avoidance
Protein and major allergen content Protein content estimated by the Lowry-Biuret method was 216 μg prot/mg in native extracts (NE) and 254 μg prot/mg in cat depigmented-polymerized extract (CDA)
Recent studies have suggested that specific biomarkers for measurement of the success of immunotherapy should be related to the capacity of allergen vaccines to stimulate production of IL-10 and IFN-γ, which are involved in the Th1 and Treg responses, respectively, and a reduction of IL-4 [20]
Summary
Allergy to cat epithelia is highly prevalent, being the major recommendation for allergy sufferers its avoidance. An intermediate patented process known as “depigmentation” [9] consist on the purification of the NE for the removal of irrelevant allergenic substances with the objective to increase the concentration of the individual allergens. To date, this method has yielded good results in other aeroallergens, including mites and pollens [10, 11]. Monomeric carbamylated allergoid sublingual immunotherapy present good results [14]
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