CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF AIRBORNE POLLEN GRAINS AND FUNGAL SPORES

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The long-term objectives of this project are to provide an extensive catalog of the prevalence of the prevalence of both airborne fungal spores and pollen grains, and to develop reliable techniques for both the identification and quantification of specific allergenic components of certain fungal spores and pollen grains. There are three components of this study. (1) Establishment of fungal spores of the atmosphere will be accomplished by collecting spores with the Anderson Sampler that aerodynamically separates the spores into size classes. Both cultural characteristics and light microscopy will be utilized to both identify and quantify airborne fungal spores. (2) Isolation and characterization of some spores-specific allergens of some indoor molds will be accomplished by using SDS-gel electrophoresis and isotachophoresis techniques. Also, an important part of this project involves the identification and isolation of the most common indoor molds. (3) Techniques involving electroblotting and enzyme immunoassay will be utilized to identify the full complement of antigens, including IgE-binding antigens or allergens within complex mixtures of proteins. Certain extracts of both pollen grains and airborne fungal spores will be fractioned by SOS-gel electrophoresis, electroblotted onto nitrocellulose membranes and probed with sera from allergic patients, goat-antihuman-lgE and subjected to immunoenzyme staining. This technique would be useful for screening a large number of allergic individuals. The cognate projects will provide information that is needed to understand the correlation between the onset and severity of respiratory allergic disorders and the prevalence of certain pollen grains and fungal spores. Also, they will provide information necessary for the development of reliable methods for both the detection and quantification of airborne allergens.