Survival of the fittest: allergology or parasitology?

Allergologists have long recognized that only a small fraction of the environmental and food proteins that we are exposed to give rise to IgE responses. This has raised the intriguing and important question: What makes an allergen an allergen? Many protein allergens have close homologs in metazoan p...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Trends in parasitology 2009-10, Vol.25 (10), p.447-451
Main Authors: Fitzsimmons, Colin M, Dunne, David W
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Allergens - chemistry
Allergens - immunology
Animal and plant ecology
Animal, plant and microbial ecology
Animals
Autoecology
Biological and medical sciences
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Gastroenterology and Hepatology
Helminth Proteins - immunology
Helminthiasis - immunology
Helminthiasis - parasitology
Helminths - immunology
Host-Parasite Interactions - immunology
Humans
Hypersensitivity - etiology
Hypersensitivity - immunology
Immunoglobulin E - blood
Infectious Disease
Metazoa
Plant Proteins - immunology
Protozoa. Invertebrata
Tropomyosin - immunology
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Summary:Allergologists have long recognized that only a small fraction of the environmental and food proteins that we are exposed to give rise to IgE responses. This has raised the intriguing and important question: What makes an allergen an allergen? Many protein allergens have close homologs in metazoan parasites, and as helminth genome information grows, it appears increasingly clear that not only are the immune mechanisms of allergy and anti-helminth immunity closely related, but so are the helminth and allergen proteins that induce them. This suggests that at least part of the secret of what allows some proteins to be allergens may actually lie in the long co-evolutionary relationship between worms and their vertebrate (and latterly human) hosts.
ISSN:1471-4922
1471-5007
DOI:10.1016/j.pt.2009.07.004