Identification of the Chicken Meat Allergens

닭고기 중 알레르기 유발성분의 동정

The chicken meat has been reported as one of the food causing allergic reactions predominantly to Korean. At present, several in vitro tests for immunoglobulinG (IgG)-mediated as well as IgE-mediated food allergy are available. 13 clinically chicken meat-allergic patients were investigated together with 4control subjects for identification of chicken meat-specific reactivity by ELISA. Also, protein profile and IgE, IgGtotal and IgG4-reacting allergens were detected by means of sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electro-phoresis (SDS-PAGE)and immunoblotting. Chicken meat extracts were prepared as raw, heated, heat and simulated gastric fluid (SGF) treated samples to characterize the stability of allergen to physicochemical treatment. SDS-PAGE revealed 9~200 kDa bands. And in immunoblotting 7 sera were identified most major bands between 10 and 78 kDa. In case of IgE, six proteins (17, 26, 35, 40, 78 kDa) were predominant in heat-treated extract, and the one (35 kDa) was present in SGF-treated preparations. In case of IgG$_{total}$ and IgG4, most of them showed a patters simmilar to IgE. There were significant differences (P<0.05) in IgE, IgG$_{total}$ , IgG4 Abs to chicken meat between the allergic and control subjects in ELISA. In addition, the concentration of IgG4Abs in the challenge-positive subjects was significantly higher than that of control subjects. It is considered that the specific IgE response to chicken meat was rarely prevalent to Koreans. However, the specific IgG4 response play an important role in the development of allergic symptoms.