BACTERIAL-BINDING PROTEIN FOR IGE

在美国，过敏性鼻炎影响着20%的人口，在医生就诊和药物治疗的时间损失和医疗成本方面都有严重的经济影响。目前，治疗分为三类。第一个是确定过敏原，并制定患者避免过敏的策略。第二种策略是使用药理制剂来预防症状，第三种方法是对特定过敏原进行脱敏。最具成本效益的策略是避免过敏原，因此，可靠的检测方法可以检测出患者对哪种过敏原敏感，因此有很大的好处。由于皮肤测试对患者来说是令人不快的，并且需要大量的医生参与，放射过敏抗体试验(RAST)是确定特应性个体过敏反应的最佳策略。这项建议的重点是通过用低成本、高亲和力的细菌IgE结合蛋白取代昂贵的检测试剂，即人类epsilon重链的特异性抗体，来提高过敏原体外自动化检测的灵敏度。该试剂将提高敏感性并减少假阴性结果，用于关键的筛查测试，以确定特应性个体过敏反应的病因。拟议的商业应用：该技术的商业应用是用更高亲和力的特定细菌蛋白取代抗IgE抗体。该产品将在诊断过敏试验中得到应用，并可能为开发预防特应性患者过敏反应的新疗法提供新的策略。

Allergic rhinitis affects 20% of the population in the USA and has a serious financial impact in both lost time and medical costs for physician visits and medication. Currently, treatment falls into three categories. The first is to identify the allergen and develop a strategy of avoidance by the patient. The second strategy is the use of pharmacological agents to prevent symptoms and the third approach is desensitization to a specific allergen. The most cost-effective strategy is that of allergen avoidance and hence, there is substantial benefit for reliable assays that can detect the allergen to which a patient is sensitive. Because skin testing is unpleasant for the patient and requires significant physician involvement, radioallergosorbent tests (RAST) are the optimal strategy to identify allergic reactivities in atopic individuals. The focus of this proposal is to improve the sensitivity of automated in vitro testing for allergens by replacing an expensive detection reagent, a specific antibody to human epsilon heavy chains, with a low-cost high affinity bacterial IgE binding protein. The reagent will improve sensitivity and reduce false negative results for a key screening test to identify the causative agent of allergic responses in atopic individuals. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: The commercial application of the technology is to replace an anti-IgE antibody with a higher affinity specific bacterial protein. This product will find applications in diagnostic allergy testing and may provide new strategies for developing a novel therapeutic to prevent allergic reactions in atopic patients.