Structural analysis of mite antigen

作为解决“屋尘螨过敏”问题的第一步，从大规模培养的粉尘螨体及其粪便中分离出几种主要抗原，并对其免疫学和化学性质进行了分析，通过对尘螨过敏患者血清、动物抗尘螨血清和小鼠抗尘螨抗体的抗原性监测，分离出大分子(分子量约105)和小分子(分子量2×10~3~5×10^3)的新的尘螨抗原。大的抗原是一种含有ba的糖蛋白。80%的碳水化合物，并有望成为一种有效的减敏治疗尘螨过敏的疫苗，因为它显示出相当高的免疫原性，但不会诱导豚鼠过敏性休克。该小抗原是一种不含碳水化合物的蛋白质，有望成为制备有效疫苗中含有过敏特异性表位的有用材料。此外，还分离到了一种新的极低疏水性的尘体。此外，从尘体中分离出mRNAs并制备其cDNA后，在cDNAs的遗传产物中检测到多种粉尘抗原。因此，这种遗传方法有望开发出大规模生产用于减敏治疗的螨类疫苗。另一方面，建立了一种用于微量患者血液中抗原依赖性白细胞组胺释放分析的高效液相体系。新的检测方法可以显著提高对尘螨过敏的诊断准确率。

As the first step to resolve the problem of "house dust mite allergy", several major antigens in mite body and its feces were isolated from a large-scale culture of Dermatophagoides farinae, and their immunological and chemical properties were analyzed.Under monitoring the antigenicity using sera of patients with mite allergy, animal antisera against mite, and mouse monoclonal anti-mite antibodies, a large (MW ca. 10^5) and a small (MW 2x10^3-5x10^3) antigens were isolated as the novel and mahor mite antigens. The large antigen was a glycoprotein containing ba. 80% of carbohydrates and expected to ba an effective vaccine for hyposensitization therapy of mite allergy as it showed a substantially high immunogenicity but no induction of anaphylactic shock in guinea pigs. The small antigen was a protein without carbohydrate and expected as the useful materials containing the allergy-specific epitopes in preparing effective vaccines. A new mite body with a very low hydrophobicity was also isolated.Furthermore, after isolation of mRNAs from mite body and preparation of their cDNAs, many kinds of mite antigens were detected in the genetic products of the cDNAs. Therefore, the genetic method was expected to develop a large-scale production of mite vaccine for hyposensitization therapy.On the other hand, a HPLC system was developed for the antigen-dependent leukocyte histamine-release assay in minute amount of patient's blood. The new assay could remarkably improve the diagnosis of mite allergy in accuracy.