Comparative genomics of fungal allergens and epitopes shows widespread distribution of closely related allergen and epitope orthologues.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Allergy is a common debilitating and occasionally life threatening condition. The fungal kingdom contains a number of species that produce a wide range of well defined protein allergens although the vast majority of fungal species have unknown allergenic potential. The recent genome sequencing of a variety of fungi provides the opportunity to assess the occurrence of allergen orthologues across the fungal kingdom. Here we use comparative genomics to survey the occurrence of allergen orthologues in fungi.

Results

A database of 82 allergen sequences was compiled and used to search 22 fungal genomes. Additionally we were able to model allergen structure for representative members of several highly homologous allergen orthologue classes. We found that some allergen or

SUBMITTER: Bowyer P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1613252 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature