Study of the silver birchpollen allergoid

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Birch pollen is one of the main allergens in central Russia, Europe, North America, and several other regions. Allergens contained in birch pollen often cause immunoglobulin E cross-reactivity with homologous proteins both in other trees and in various foods. Allergen immunotherapy is currently the only allergy-treating method that directly affects various links in disease pathogenesis, thereby changing the bodys response to the action of the allergen. The clinical effectiveness of allergen immunotherapy reaches 80%90% and is expressed by decreased clinical manifestations and the need for drugs. An allergoid, unlike an allergen, retains its immunogenicity, but significantly loses its allergenicity, which makes it safer for use with allergen immunotherapy. AIM: To obtain an allergoid from the pollen of silver birch (Btula pndula) by processing it with glutaraldehyde. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The purified allergen isolated from pollen, by degreasing and watersalt extraction, was dissolved in phosphate-buffered saline at 7.5 pH and polymerized in 0.1% of glutaraldehyde solution. Stabilization was conducted with a sodium borohydride solution. RESULTS: The allergoid significantly reduced its allergenicity compared to the original allergen after assessing the specific activity using a competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. CONCLUSIONS: This study obtained an allergen of the silver birch. The resulting allergen contains major and minor antigens of silver birch (Bet v 1, Bet v 2, Bet v 3, Bet v 6, and Bet v 7). Based on these, an allergoid was obtained by polymerization with glutaraldehyde. The resulting allergoid has a large molecular weight and a low allergenic activity, in comparison with the original allergen. Thereby, this allergoid can become the basis for obtaining new allergen immunotherapy preparations.