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中分离出螨体及其粪便中的几种主要抗原，并对其免疫学和化学特性进行了分析。10^5）和小分子抗原（分子量2 × 10^3 - 5 × 10^3）作为新抗原和大螨抗原。大抗原是一种含有ba的糖蛋白。80%的碳水化合物，并预期作为螨过敏的脱敏治疗的有效疫苗，因为它显示出相当高的免疫原性，但在豚鼠中不诱导过敏性休克。小分子抗原是一种不含糖的蛋白质，有望成为制备有效疫苗的含有过敏特异性表位的有用材料。此外，从螨体中分离出了一种新的螨体，其疏水性很低，并从螨体中提取了mRNAs，制备了cDNA，在cDNA的基因产物中检测到了多种螨抗原。因此，基因方法有望开发出大规模生产螨疫苗用于脱敏治疗。另一方面，开发了一种HPLC系统，用于微量患者血液中抗原依赖性白细胞组胺释放测定。新方法可显著提高螨过敏诊断的准确性。

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.