BACKGROUND Although mouse allergen is known to cause occupational asthma in laboratory workers, its potential significance in home environments has never been studied. OBJECTIVE This study was designed to define the prevalence of mouse sensitivity and its relationship to mouse allergen exposure and disease activity in inner-city children with asthma. METHODS A subset of 499 subjects from th...

BACKGROUND Airway responsiveness to histamine and methacholine, direct smooth muscle spasmogens, is increased following inhalation of allergen. Although the aetiology of this phenomenon is unclear, increased cellular or neural activity may be involved since allergen also induces increases in airway responsiveness to the mast cell stimulus adenosine-5'-monophosphate (AMP) and the neural stimulus...

Allergen specific CD4+ T cell clones generated from allergic individuals have been shown to produce increased levels of the cytokine interleukin 4 (IL-4), compared to allergen specific clones generated from nonallergic individuals. This difference between CD4+ T cells from allergic and nonallergic individuals with regard to cytokine production in response to allergen is thought to be responsibl...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW Molecular allergology uses pure, mainly recombinant and structurally defined allergen molecules and allergen-derived epitopes to study mechanisms of IgE-associated allergy, to diagnose, and even predict the development of allergic manifestations and to treat and prevent IgE-associated allergies. Atopic dermatitis, a chronic inflammatory skin disease is almost always associated...

BACKGROUND Vaccines consisting of allergen-derived peptides lacking IgE reactivity and allergen-specific T cell epitopes bound to allergen-unrelated carrier molecules have been suggested as candidates for allergen-specific immunotherapy. OBJECTIVE To study whether prophylactic and therapeutic vaccination with carrier-bound peptides from the major birch pollen allergen Bet v 1 lacking allergen...

Allergen exposure can confound the management of asthma. To understand the potential mechanisms by which allergens increase the steroid requirements in atopic asthmatics, we examined the effects of allergens on glucocorticoid receptor (GCR) binding affinity and glucocorticoid (GC) responsiveness of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from atopic asthmatics. A significant reduction (p < 0....

Background: The natural history of immunoglobulin (Ig) E-mediated diseases in preterm infants is still elusive. We aimed at developing a non-invasive tool for detecting specific IgE (sIgE) and eosinophil-derived neurotoxin (EDN) neonatal fecal samples evaluating its predictive value the development IgE-mediated during first year life. Methods: developed stool extraction protocol, followed by fr...

Allergen-specific IgG antibodies play a significant role in allergen-specific tolerance, either naturally induced or generated by specific immunotherapy. Nevertheless, the underlying mechanisms are still debated, and allergen-specific IgG determinations are not recommended as a diagnostic tool in IgE-mediated allergy. This review summarizes the latest findings on the immunological and diagnosti...

The topic of morphological productivity as it has been conceived in linguistics for the last half-century is treated in greatest detail in Bauer (2001). If our brief discussion here leads the reader to that book, we will have gone a long way to doing our job. In this chapter, though, we also have a different aim, which is to recast the problem of morphological productivity in a different light....

Homes cannot be made allergen free, but exposure to the major indoor allergens can be reduced. All reduction recommendations are based on the principle of reducing or isolating the source, and certain recommendations can be made on the basis of published evidence. House dust mite avoidance measures include fitting allergen-proof mattress and pillow encasings, washing bedding regularly, and redu...