Sensitivity of Moroccans to sardine parvalbumin and effect of heating and enzymatic treatments

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe aim of this study was to evaluate the IgE sensitivity to sardine parvalbumin (SP) in a Moroccan population from Fez region, and then to study the effect of temperature and enzymatic digestion on the allergenicity of SP. This work was conducted with a questionnaire completed by a sera-bank, obtained from 1008 patients recruited from Fez Hospitals. Their sera were analyzed for specific IgE against SP. From the questionnaire, 8.1% reported adverse reactions to fish and shellfish, where sardine was the most common species causing adverse reactions in patients. Evaluation of specific IgE showed that 7.8% of patients present higher values. Further indirect ELISA and dot-blot results indicated that SP, a major fish allergen, showed a reduction in the human IgE binding under heating and pepsin hydrolysis. These results demonstrate that this population was sensitive to SP and the sensitivity could be reduced by heating and more where it was digested by pepsin.