Abstract
(1) Background: After spending a year wintering in Antarctica, individual expedition members have reported increased or even new allergic reactions to environmental allergens after their return. (2) Methods: Blood samples from five overwintering crews were analyzed using the chip based multiplex ALEX Allergy Explorer (MacroArray Diagnostics GmbH, Austria). (3) Results: About one third of the 39 participants displayed specific IgEs against pollen. In most individuals, kinetics showed a reduction in the specific IgE at the time about nine months after deployment to Antarctica. Five participants had the highest specific IgE levels after returning to the “normal” world. The examination of the specific IgE relative to house dust mites and storage mites showed different kinetics. Six out of 10 had the highest specific IgE concentrations at the inner Antarctic measurement time point. These data corresponded well to the general situation in the stations. At the stations themselves, there were almost no pollen particle load, especially at Concordia. (4) Conclusions: Antarctic long-term confinement can induce an altered immune function, which is in some individuals pronounced after return to the familiar allergen environment. Future prospective studies in larger cohorts are needed to further specify these first results.
Highlights
Antarctica is the most hostile continent on Earth—it is the coldest, driest, and windiest, but is the cleanest place on our planet
As only small amounts of blood existed for further sensitization analyses, the study team decided to use the chip based multiplex ALEX Allergy Explorer (MacroArray Diagnostics GmbH, Vienna, Austria) containing more than 280 allergen extracts and molecular allergens
Neu6_post new allergic reactions to gras/flowers ->hay fever, wheezing, throat swelling yes no grass and rabbit allergy. This retrospective investigation was initiated after the incidence of personal communications increased where returnees wintering over for a year in Antarctic stations experienced more allergic reactions than they had at home before deployment to Antarctica
Summary
Antarctica is the most hostile continent on Earth—it is the coldest, driest, and windiest, but is the cleanest place on our planet. Our group started immunological human studies in this extreme environment in one year overwintering crews, primarily focusing on innate and adaptive immune alterations [2,3] and on general stress responses These investigations took place at two Antarctic stations: one at the coastal side Another one, who had previously had allergic reactions (rash, wheezing) to cats and dogs complained about newly developed hay fever, wheezing, and throat swelling in the presence of grass and flowers, after return These communications brought our attention to retrospectively investigate potential sensitizations and type-1 hypersensitivity (“allergic”) typical symptoms in five previously studied overwintering crews at Neumayer III and Concordia Station
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