Peanut Allergen Research

Peanut is quite a potential food allergen. Peanut allergy is becoming a serious health problem because of the increasing prevalence, clinical severity, and chronicity of the reaction which may occur at any ages. Symptoms of peanut allergy varies from mild oral mucosal allergy, urticaria to fatal laryngeal edema, acute asthma and anaphylaxis, even to death. Studies suggested that peanut contained a great number of proteins and its allergens is heterogenous in chemical composition. A few major allergens have been identified according to their physicochemical and immunologic properties. However, peanut allergens have yet to be fully identified and characterized.Extracts of defatted, raw and roasted peanuts with PBS solution were prepared, followed by gel filtration and lyophilization. Twenty peanut allergic outpatients were collected. The diagnosis was based on convincing typical peanut allergic history, positive skin prick test, and high titer of specific IgE. A few patients underwent food challenge test. The serum pool was made by sera from eight highly sensitive patients. RAST inhibition test using Pharmacia quality controlled CAP system revealed that the slopes of the inhibition lines were similar. The quantity of protein required to achieve 50% inhibition for raw and roasted peanut was 33.8 μ g and 30.2 μ g respectively. It seems that heat treatment may slightly increase the allergenicity of peanut. However, there is no significant difference between the raw and roasted peanut on allergenicity. SDS-PAGE and immuno-blot were applied to characterize the components and molecular weights of peanut allergens. At least fourteen protein bands were identified with five...